Pro-Democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong : photo source
Bishop John Tong, Roman Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong, called today for the release of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and others held prisoner because of their dissenting views on politics and religion . His plea was met with a deafening silence from Beijing. The silence, along with the government strong arm efforts to silence the free press simply underscore the justice of the Bishop's plea.
The official paranoid Party line( and I do mean Party) is on view at China's official English language press outlet, Global Times Here's a sample:
"A rising China with different fundamental principles disturbs the West, which is beleaguered in deep economic woes. Discrediting China is a way to maintain the moral superiority of the developed world, and consequently keep the privilege of the West, which helps maximize the interests of the developed countries.
The Nobel Peace Prize is not a lone voice. Actually, it is part of a concerto supplemented by various NGOs, economic identities and international organizations orchestrated by the developed countries. They hope to harass China's growth, and press China to surrender more economic interests. They even hope that China will one day collapse under the West's ideological crusade.
From Google threatening to withdraw from China earlier this year, to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to a Chinese criminal, the ideological war against China is far from over."
Meanwhile, a dozen dissidents have disappeared in China and Liu's wife is under house arrest; unable to visit her husband or to be contacted by foreign journalists. It looks like China's real worry is not contamination by ideas from the West, but demands for basic human rights from within. Though I would hardly call the Roman Catholic Church a participatory democracy or an organization that tolerates dissent, The Bishop of Hong Kong is absolutely right on this one. Kudos to him for speaking out.
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