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Justice in China

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Here are two articles about how China deals with its crime problem. The law and order people should love this.

BEIJING – Two mob bosses were sentenced to death Thursday for gambling, bribery and assault in the latest series of gang prosecutions in southwestern China, state media reported.

The Chongqing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Chen Mingliang and Zhou Yong to death as part of a group of 34 people who stood trial in a crackdown on the city's violent underworld, according to the Web site of the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party.

Two other gang leaders were given life in prison, the report said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100204/ap_on_re_as/as_china_gang_trial

And,

BEIJING – Chinese state media say one person has been sentenced to death and 24 sentenced to prison in nine kidnapping cases.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency says two courts in the capital of the southern province of Guangdong handed down the sentences Thursday.

Xinhua at first reported that all 25 people were sentenced to death, but corrected that report on Friday to say just one faces the death penalty.

China executes more people than any other country.

In one of the kidnapping for ransom cases, Xinhua says the victim died from violent treatment.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100205/ap_on_re_as/as_china_death_sentences

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Thaksin tried getting tough on crime by shooting drug dealers.

Hmmm. There certainly were a lot of alleged drug dealers killed by soldiers and police during an approximately 3-month time period a few years back (maybe 2005?).

But, although I've read about every story I could get my hands on about those events, I never read any first-hand, second-hand, third-hand (etc.) account that either the prime minister (that would be Thaksin Shinawatra at the time) or the cabinet authorized (expressly or impliedly) any extra-judicial killings.

So....I'm just wondering what you base your comment on.

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Hmmm. There certainly were a lot of alleged drug dealers killed by soldiers and police during an approximately 3-month time period a few years back (maybe 2005?).

But, although I've read about every story I could get my hands on about those events, I never read any first-hand, second-hand, third-hand (etc.) account that either the prime minister (that would be Thaksin Shinawatra at the time) or the cabinet authorized (expressly or impliedly) any extra-judicial killings.

So....I'm just wondering what you base your comment on.

It seemed that the powers that be t that were OK with the alledged drug dealers being shot instead of arrested.

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Okay, I guess you based your statement about Shinawatra shooting drug dealers based on what you seemed to think you saw or heard. I'm not a big fan of Shinawatra but even he ought to be labeled a murderer on something more than that.

Based on what I read, it was the Shinawatra government, embarrassed at the murders (with the final straw being the cops shooting at some alleged woman drug dealer in a car and hitting and killing her kid sleeping in the back seat)ordered the cops and military to stop it. This all happened from the end of February to about the first of May and reflected, in my view, a hell of a lot more on the military and cops than anybody in the government. Now, it surely is theoretically possible that somebody in the government quietly gave the green light to extra-judicial killings but one could only conclude that based on theory and tea leaves. Somebody probably ought not be labeled a murderer based on that.

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My recollection is that many farangs seemed to think it was an unwritten Thaksin policy and I'd go along with that.

I don't know what Thaksin did or did not authorize. I believe in harsh measures against drug dealers, but summary execution is not among the measures I would favor.

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My recollection is that many farangs seemed to think it was an unwritten Thaksin policy and I'd go along with that.

Drug dealing and other crime has gotten worse on Lower Suk now that Thaksin's gone.

Yep, drug dealing has been increasing especially within the last year. There's an enhanced operation going on now near the Burmese border to try to slow it down (even if successful, millions of yaba pills are still getting through each month). I'm heading up closer to the border this afternoon and I'm curious to see if the various highway checkpoints will be enhanced. We'll see.

As concerns what "farangs seemed to think", I don't quite go that way. I get my information (as sparse as it may be given the usual lack of good investigative reporting in the Thai press) from various Thai newspapers which I tend to read every day. Most falang don't even do that and get much of their "information" while pounding down some beers (i.e., believing what the average falang over here thinks is probably worse than knowing nothing).

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I get my information (as sparse as it may be given the usual lack of good investigative reporting in the Thai press) from various Thai newspapers which I tend to read every day.

Think it runs deeper than that. Bangkok Post and The Nation seem extreemly cautious and careful not to offend those in power or those who may come to power.

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Another example of China justice. Let's get those nasty porno peddlers in jail!

BEIJING – A man in southern China was sentenced to 13 years in jail for running a pornographic Web site, a state news agency reported Sunday, amid a national crackdown on lewd online content.

The court in the Guangdong province city of Jiangmen handed down the sentence to Huang Yizhong and fined him 100,000 yuan ($14,600), the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Huang pleaded guilty to charges of copying and spreading pornographic material on the Web site, which he ran since 2005 using a rented U.S. server, Xinhua said. Police caught him last July and his trial started Jan. 6.

It said Huang downloaded more than 1,000 pornographic movies and edited them into video clips for his site. With more than 4,000 paying members, he received profits of nearly $500,000, Xinhua said.

Last year, Chinese authorities caught nearly 5,400 people suspected of involvement in online pornography and vowed to strengthen Internet policing.

Beijing's pervasive policing of the Internet is already among the world's most stringent. Authorities have said the "purification of the Internet" and fighting of online crime are closely tied to the country's stability.

The Communist government says the main targets of its Web censorship are pornography, gambling and other sites deemed harmful to society. Critics, however, say those goals often act as a cover for detecting and blocking sensitive political content. China's restrictions of the Internet are often referred to as the "Great Firewall of China."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100207/ap_on_re_as/as_china_pornography

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Not my quote, but from the associated press article. Seems the Chinese government wants control over the citizens.

All repressive regimes (i.e., dictatorships) need to control what information goes to their citizens - that's how they "keep 'em down on the farm." But, thankfully, eventually (as Russia learned) the citizens seem to see the light although some of the really repressive regimes that tightly control information (North Korea being a good example of that) can last for many, many, decades. The North Koreans, for example, are indoctrinated that they are actually better off than their South Korean counterparts and the average North Korean has no access to all the information out there that would prove that claim totally false! (which, given reality, is an unbelievably incredible job of duping your own citizens)

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Here is a Chinese man investigating the tragic death of school children after an earthquake. He received five years for subversion of state power. This is a classic example of how a repressive regime controlling the populous.

By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer BEIJING – A Chinese court Tuesday sentenced an activist who investigated the deaths of thousands of schoolchildren in the country's massive 2008 earthquake to five years in jail for inciting subversion of state power, the man's lawyer said.Attorney Pu Zhiqiang said activist Tan Zuoren was convicted and sentenced Tuesday by the Chengdu Intermediate Court. Tan's trial in August had concluded with no ruling, during which police detained and threatened his supporters.

Tan's supporters believe authorities were trying to silence him for his investigation into the collapse of schools in the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck in Sichuan province in May 2008, leaving almost 90,000 dead or missing. Tan estimated at least 5,600 students were among the dead, while a figure released by the government last May put the count at 5,335.

The charge of inciting subversion of state power was also linked to essays he wrote about the 1989 student-led demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square that ended in a deadly military crackdown. China routinely uses such broad and vaguely defined accusations to imprison dissidents, sometimes for years.

"Tan thinks one of the reasons behind this case is that he was leading an investigation into the poorly built schools after the earthquake, which would have embarrassed the local government in Chengdu," Pu said.

Critics allege that shoddy construction, enabled by corruption, caused several schools to collapse while buildings nearby remained intact — a politically sensitive theory that the government has tried to quash, fearing it could undermine the admiration and goodwill it earned after its massive rescue effort.

But activists and parents — many of whom lost their only children in the quake — have repeatedly demanded those responsible for shoddy construction be investigated and punished. Those who've pressed the issue have been detained, harassed and threatened by police and thugs believed to be hired by local officials.

Pu said Tan would appeal the court's verdict, which he said was based on a diary entry Tan had written in 2007 and a campaign last year looking at how authorities handled the 1989 Tiananmen protests.

"The court was very smart. They took out any mention of the earthquake from the verdict because they are afraid of referring to it," Pu said.

In a sign of the sensitivity that continues to surround the case, Chinese police officers tried to block nine Hong Kong journalists from interviewing Pu outside the courthouse, Hong Kong's radio RTHK said.

The reporters were led to a room inside the courthouse and released after the verdict was announced, RTHK said.

Calls to the court rang unanswered Tuesday.

Amnesty International urged Chinese authorities to release Tan, saying his case highlighted China's use of vague and broad laws to silence dissenting voices.

"The Chinese authorities cannot continue to claim that they are dealing with human rights defenders according to the law when they violate so many of their own legal procedures in cases like this," the organization's Asia-Pacific deputy director, Roseann Rife, said in an e-mailed statement.

In a related case, the same court rejected the appeal of Huang Qi, a prominent dissident who criticized the government's response to the Sichuan earthquake.

Huang had appealed against a three-year jail sentence he was handed in November on the charge of illegally possessing state secrets, his lawyer Mo Shaoping said. Mo said he was notified of the court's decision in a letter he received Tuesday and that no hearing had been held.

Huang, founder of a human rights Web site, was detained in June 2008 and had previously served a five-year prison sentence on subversion charges linked to politically sensitive articles posted on his site.

Since his release in 2005, Huang has supported a wide range of causes, including aiding families of those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and publicizing the complaints of farmers involved in land disputes with authorities.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100209/ap_on_re_as/as_china_earthquake_dissident;_ylt=AqF7trZ2QAjFZQFMblMQyjtv24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTNpdGVycmloBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMjA5L2FzX2NoaW5hX2VhcnRocXVha2VfZGlzc2lkZW50BGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDNgRwb3MDNgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2NoaW5hc2VudGVuYw--

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