She is a Falun Gong supporter and is charged with "knowingly and willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening or harassing a foreign official performing his duties." This charge is based on her stating "Your time is running out," to Chinese President Hu Jintao, and later, when screaming "Anything you have done will come back to you in this life."
Supposedly she has crossed the first amendment. I am outraged at this charge. Many worse things have been stated to non-foriegn officials. Why should we protect the foreign officials from the same? Seems alot like hypocrisy to me.
Well, the Washington Post has opened my eyes to the need for such a law:
Such laws are necessary to protect visiting dignitaries from attacks - and to ensure reciprocal protections for U.S. officials abroad.But the charges are still overblown. From the same article:
But no one alleges that Mr. Hu was ever in danger of anything more serious than irritation or humiliation. According to the court documents, the yelling caused Mr. Hu "to interrupt his speech" and look toward Ms. Wang. There's no question that it also caused Mr. Bush to be embarrassed about a lapse of protocol for a visitor acutely sensitive to diplomatic niceties. Okay, but the United States shouldn't indirectly apologize to the Chinese by means of an action that affronts American values.I completely agree with the last sentence from the Washington Post article. Bush should not be embarrased by Americans who are not afraid to speak their mind. If he is, then he is not the man who should be running this country.
3 comments:
So what's everyone's take on internet search companies complying with Chinese govt.'s site censorship?
Companies exist to make money. Therefore, why is it surprising that they are willing to comply with Chinese laws in order to make more money? It's not like the CEO's of these companies are harmed when some poor schlep in China is arrested because of their company's collaboration with the Chinese government. They're only going to look at the bottom line.
Now, I admit, this is unfortunate. However, the world around me seems to be highly materialistic and money-oriented, so I'm not one bit surprised to see ethics tossed out the window in favor of money.
Don't underestimate Hu Jintao's deeds in his youth. During the start of the Cultural Revolution, he led a group of Red Guards from Tsinghua University to set fire to the British embassy. Don't underestimate Hu Jintao when he was party secretary of the Tibet autonomous region. He gave orders to suppress the so called Tibetan civilian uprisings without seeking instructions from the central government and personally directed the crackdown wearing a helmet.
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