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100+ Chinese protesters have been arrested by the government in the wake of an anonymous call for protests
13 number of cities where the protests were expected; police have been out in full force in each of them
no China won’t let people talk about “Jasmine” online, and protest discussion has been prevented source

» China doesn’t screw around: The pro-democracy “Jasmine Revolution” protests, inspired by the situations in the Middle East, haven’t drawn very large crowds. But China’s elaborate and sophisticated response has basically been designed to discourage dissent against the state, making the road the anonymous protesters took much harder than, say, in Egypt.

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Dec 2010 10:18

» Who are these people? Besides China (duh), the countries are Afghanistan, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela, Vietnam and Ukraine. Most aren’t very surprising, but a couple (The Philippines, Russia) are. So why are they choosing to boycott Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony? Simple. China probably threatened economic retribution against countries that supported the ceremony. And China is powerful.

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

I don’t want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism. I think it’s quite obvious what the people want; the people just want better lives based on security and on freedom.
Recently-freed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi • Revealing her hopes for bringing democracy to Myanmar (also known as Burma), which has been led by a military junta for the last two generations. She wants military leadership to end, though. “I think we also have to try to make this thing happen,” she said “Velvet revolution sounds a little strange in the context of the military, but a non-violent revolution. Let’s put it that way.” As you might guess by what she’s saying, she had no conditions set on her freedom. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

Liu Xiaobo, posted by laihiu on Flickr

This of course doesn’t take away from Liu’s win at all. After a year when the Nobel Peace Prize committee faced heavy criticism for selecting the relatively fresh Obama as their pick, they’ve redeemed themselves by picking someone on the front lines of peace activism – only the third currently-incarcerated winner in the award’s history. (He’s serving 11 years in prison, a harsh sentence, on fairly minor charges.) Of course, China doesn’t see it that way, and it could – at least in the short term – do more harm than good for the world at large. Some (mostly unfortunate) side effects from the win:

one The first one is already happening – China is shutting down lines of communication, even blocking the word “Liu” from text messages.
two The win could have the opposite intended effect on human rights – causing Chinese dissidents harm as a direct result of Liu’s win.
three Norway’s economy could directly suffer as a result of the pick. China accounted for 3.7 percent of the Scandinavian country’s exports. source