Please read this absolutely horrific story from the UK Independent. A woman in China is suing her local government because she was forced to abort her child when she was nine months pregnant. You read that right, a forced abortion at nine months:
Jin Yani’s water had already broken when China’s abortion police came for her. They took her to a nearby abortion centre, injected her unborn baby girl and removed the body two days later.
Mrs Jin’s crime was to have become pregnant by her fiance five months before she married him at the age of 20, the legal minimum.
Read the entire article, it details a shockingly corrupt local authority that demanded bribes from the couple, forcibly aborted the child anyway, and then tried to cover up the mess with further bribes. The scary part is crimes like this are standard procedure in the People’s Republic of China.
In a related story, human rights activists across the PRC are being rounded up and silenced ahead of the Olympic games. After all, the Chinese can’t have anything screwing up their big coming out party.
“Within the last two weeks… the police have began detaining and putting under house arrest dozens of activists, outspoken intellectuals and human rights lawyers,” the China Human Rights Defenders, a network of domestic and foreign activists, said in a report released on the weekend.
I know the Western media likes to bring up the potential “negative press” China is facing before the Olympics – but they seem concerned with highlighting innocuous issues like lead toys, fake drugs and air pollution. The harsh reality is that China’s true crimes lay in human rights violations: forced abortions, house arrests, political imprisonment and over 1,000 executions per year. When we’re all watching the games this summer and behold all the beautiful stadiums, cute mascots and smiling citizens – never forget that the Olympic Village is really a Potemkin village, hiding an abusive, soulless regime that aims to dominate our future.
Pay no attention to the horror behind the cartoon characters.
1 Mike W // Jan 08, 2008 at 10:10 AM
I’m speechless at how utterly atrocious that story is… and the fact that it is not an isolated incident is making me nauseous.
I’ve given a bit of thought to how China may or may not rise in the coming years. It’s generally accepted that since the fall of the USSR a world superpower could not be borne from such egregious abuse of basic human rights and liberties. Only a nation that unchains itself from despotism can truly become a superpower (combining economic power with military might.)
I hope beyond all hope that this belief holds true with China, that their future demise or ascent is hinged upon their people. If the people can successfully rise up and throw out the dictatorial scum who so overtly oppress the greater population, perhaps then and only then will the path to true power on the world’s stage be opened. Sadly I know that this is not the path they take, and Hu Jintao’s regime very well may find that his blend of despotism and propaganda can still lead to economic strength.
2 Choocher // Jan 09, 2008 at 02:18 PM
Glad to know someone’s brain is so pickled by booze he still sharpshoots foreign country’s crimes against its people like he’s got automatic superiority for being from the land of the free. ” U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Hurps Bartenner! ‘Nother Sgotch. Almuss done writin’ muh blo-, blo-, bLLOOORSHH!…zorry bartenner. ere’s ten nollars, for cleanup. Faggin Chinurmen.”
3 Thomas // Jan 09, 2008 at 05:27 PM
Choocher, Are you supporting the Chinese governemnt’s actions?
I’m pretty sure even Idi Amin might flinch at this one.