Takes One to Know One ...

... or: Playpen Seeks New Playmate Made in China

The ricey version of a State Department subservient to the bushbaby has announced, contrary to ALL other assessments of the situation there, that China has "improved" in human rights! Shocking considering the nearly daily reports of censorship and bludgeoning that its "citizens" must endure, including the fact that most do NOT even have any form of state retirement (now that's comm(unist)ando-style economics for you!).

To wit:

Reporters Without Borders
Beijing Games update
12.03: monks arrested in Lhasa protests, while exiles in India start long march

The New York Times, Washington, By HELENE COOPER, Published: March 12, 2008
U.S. Drops China From List of Top 10 Violators of Rights
"The State Department no longer considers China one of the world’s worst human rights violators, a decision that immediately earned the ire of human rights groups."

Washington retire la Chine de la liste des Etats les plus répressifs
LE MONDE 12.03.08
La Chine, qui figurait l'an dernier et en 2005 sur cette liste, change de statut. Le département d'Etat la requalifie en "pays autoritaire en pleine réforme économique ayant vécu des changements sociaux rapides mais n'ayant pas procédé à des réformes politiques et continuant à nier à ses citoyens les droits de l'homme et les libertés fondamentales basiques".

©

The Washington Post
U.S. Delisting of China Upsets Rights Activists
By Jill Drew, Washington Post Foreign Service, Thursday, March 13, 2008; A13

BEIJING, March 12 -- Human rights activists on Wednesday decried the U.S. State Department's decision to drop China from its list of the world's worst human rights violators, saying that China's crackdown on dissent is getting worse as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in August.
"We and others have documented a sharp uptick in human rights violations directly related to preparations for the Olympics," said Phelim Kine, Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch. The decision comes at the worst possible time for activists seeking to pressure Beijing to relax restrictions on free speech, release political prisoners and improve human rights protections, Kine added.

Human Rights Watch (New York, March 12, 2008)
China: Beijing’s Migrant Construction Workers Abused
Builders of the ‘New Beijing’ Cheated of Wages, Denied Essential Services – Migrant construction workers building the “new Beijing” are routinely exploited by being denied proper wages, under dangerous conditions with neither accident insurance nor access to medical and other social services, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

U.S. State Department: 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

For example, China’s overall human rights record remained poor in 2007. Controls were tightened on religious freedom in Tibetan areas and in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and the treatment of petitioners in Beijing worsened. The government also continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison activists, writers, journalists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law. Although the government pursued some important reforms, such as the Supreme People’s Court’s resumption of death penalty review power in cases handed down for immediate execution, efforts to reform or abolish the reeducation-through-labor system remained stalled. New temporary regulations improved overall reporting conditions for foreign journalists, but enforcement of these regulations was not consistent, hindering the work of some foreign journalists. The year 2007 saw increased efforts to control and censor the Internet, and the government tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the domestic press. The government continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison journalists, Internet writers, and bloggers. NGOs reported 29 journalists and 51 cyber-dissidents and Internet users remained in jail at year’s end. There was a 20 percent increase over 2006 in convictions of citizens under China’s overly broad state security law that is often used to silence government critics. In December, well-known human rights activist Hu Jia was arrested at his home and detained for suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power.” His wife and infant daughter were reportedly put under house arrest at the same time. NGOs, both local and international, faced intense scrutiny and restrictions.

The above quote from the report is enough to show how little the chinese plutocrats care about their citizens and their rights. Perhaps they're too busy making cheap plastic copies of everything westerners desire for their big smoke and veil olympic-show, coming to a tv near you. They deserve total scorn and no audience at all.