Isn't it silly how we speak out against various countries/governments, but turn our heads at China who seems to be just as bad if not worse?
They should also interview the protesters about Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo. I don't know why we are somehow immune to human rights abuses.
And speaking of Human Rights abuses, I recommend you all do some reading about life in Tibet under the Lama class. It's been almost 50 years since the Lama's fled from their dictatorship, so there's not alot of recent news about the topic, but it was NOT a pretty existence. (Unless you were a Lama of course!) Noone is going to Deny China is bad (for most in China, not JUST the Tibetans), but life under the Lama class of Dictators living in opulent monasteries, while everyone else lives in utter poverty, and for roughly half the population, serfdom enforced like slavery.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Parenti_Tibet.htmIn 1953, the greater part of the rural population---some 700,000 of an estimated total population of 1,250,000---were serfs. Tied to the land, they were allotted only a small parcel to grow their own food. Serfs and other peasants generally went without schooling or medical care. They spent most of their time laboring for the monasteries and individual high-ranking lamas, or for a secular aristocracy that numbered not more than 200 families. In effect, they were owned by their masters who told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. A serf might easily be separated from his family should the owner send him to work in a distant location. Serfs could be sold by their masters, or subjected to torture and death.
A Tibetan lord would often take his pick of females in the serf population, if we are to believe one 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf: "All pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished." They "were just slaves without rights."
Some monasteries had their own private prisons, reports Anna Louise Strong. In 1959, she visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, and breaking off hands. For gouging out eyes, there was a special stone cap with two holes in it that was pressed down over the head so that the eyes bulged out through the holes and could be more readily torn out. There were instruments for slicing off kneecaps and heels, or hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disembowling.
The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master's cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.
All quotes are cited to their sources in that article, most are from journalists who had traveled to Tibet in the 40's and 50's.
So be careful when you voice support for the Lama's, they really just want their slaves, servants and mansions back. And when you say human rights abuses against the (roughly 3 million) Tibetans are terrible you ALSO shouldn't overlook the roughly BILLION Chinese citizens who live under equally bad human rights abuses and poverty.
This mythology that the Tibetan dictatorship isn't as bad as the Chinese government is largely fueled in THIS county by the continued HATRED of Communism. That and Hollywood douchebags.
