China silently seethes over dissident's Nobel Peace Prize

[babylonsister]

China silently seethes over dissident's Nobel Peace Prize

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers


More than 12 hours after the announcement that an imprisoned dissident in China had won the Nobel Peace Prize, China's domestic news media on Saturday remained silent on the subject, underscoring the Communist Party's rage at so public a challenge to its authoritarian rule.

The central government in Beijing blocked Chinese-language Internet searches and cell phone text messages about the award to Liu Xiaobo, who is the first resident Chinese citizen honored with what is arguably the world's most prestigious prize.

How far China will go in the days ahead to ensure that most of its citizens never learn about Liu's award remained an open question. There were reports on Twitter, accessible from China only with special software, that several Chinese who'd tried to celebrate the award in Beijing and Shanghai were carted off by police.

The award strikes at the heart of the way Beijing's rulers usually handle the country's small numbers of dissidents - monitoring, harassing, detaining and censoring them until the vast majority of Chinese don't realize they even exist.

The Nobel committee said that by conferring the honor upon Liu, it intended to call attention to China's human rights problems. Liu, a 54-year-old former university professor, has spent years in and out of Chinese jails for his dissident activities, beginning with the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/10/08/101832/china-denounces-dissidents-nobel.html

[saltpoint]

1. Recommended. In awarding the Peace Prize to Liu, it

seems the Nobel committee's instinct about China's human rights atrocities was right-on, as Beijing predictably freaked out and cracked down on celebrants.

Beijing has the leverage to make life completely miserable for activists but the severity of their response to events signals to the world that the mix of paranoia and authoritarianism renders them unfit to be a global player.

If you squeeze sand in your fingers you lose a lot of it. If you relax your grip most of it stays.

[Cal33]

2. I wonder if the same thing will happen in this country should the Neocons

win, both this November and in 2012. They already tore up a portion of
the US Constitution during Bush's two terms. Their next president might
very well complete the job!

We just can't afford to have another Neocon president -- not when the
corporations have weakened our nation to the condition we are now in.
Corporations and the Neocons are one.

[annabanana]

3. Boy Howdy THAT'S the truth!. . . n/t

[LiberalFighter]

4. How many more awards can be awarded to Chinese citizens?

And keep China pissed off?

[Johonny]

5. They're acting almost as badly as Republicans when Obama won

Totalitarians don't like the peace prize.


In other news my Chinese friend said to me: If he's in jail he most be a criminal, so they should be mad he got the prize. A lot of Chinese do not understand how repressive their government is.