...of Congress’ Helsinki Commission listed the names of specific Soviet political prisoners to be released. The constant push by Western governments to the Soviets to release political pressures convinced the Soviets to release dissidents who quickly resumed their political activities against the state. The social mobilization that can result from such opportunities erodes a repressive regime’s control of information and public discourse. Such cons...
...nese persecution of Uighur people is much faster than our efforts to save them from such persecution. China has sped up the systematic assimilation of Uighurs by all necessary means, including the frequent execution of Uighur dissidents. That is why I have called for an international conference of Uighurs to discuss and plan new strategies to help save the Uighur people from Chinese assimilation. We will present our new plan of action in February...
...use it is a fuzzy word with no set meaning, and favorite of party mouthpieces when talking about soft power and China’s political system – promoting Chinese “culture” could mean anything from teaching calligraphy to interning dissidents.) With the number of people learning Chinese around the world increasing rapidly, Confucius Institutes the world over have thrived, and the PRC’s Office of Chinese Language Council International aims to establish...
from Wikimedia Commons On September 18, 1931, the Imperial Japanese Army created a crisis in Manchuria as a pretext for invasion. Dynamite was detonated in a train station in the city of Mukden (now known as Shenyang, in the northern Chinese province of Liaoning). The Japanese blamed the explosion on Chinese dissidents, and launched a full invasion of Manchuria. The puppet state of Manchukuo (the “country of the Manchu”) was established a short...
..., acquired a distinctly pugilistic atmosphere. Supporter sections rallied around seditious chants and banners, and the fans, colloquially referred to as “cules,” routinely abused non-Catalan opposition. The fans and political dissidents shared an independence chant: “Visca el Barça i visca Catalunya (Long live Barça and Catalonia).” Franco tried to subvert the movement by undermining Barcelona’s chances of sporting success. In 1943, when Barcelon...
...The stated purpose of the trip is to “extend a hand of friendship” to a country that is seemingly making lightning-paced reforms. The usual bromides about democracy, the right to assemble, the freeing of political dissidents, etcetera, etcetera have abounded. Remember the strategic pivot, though? Now that he’s been reelected, Obama seems to be unabashedly sacrificing principles for pragmatism, and this is troubling. Virtually ov...
...iven many lives and much struggle for the sake of overturning a minority regime that reserves the overwhelming positions of power and government for its own sect, allocates enormous wealth to the president’s family, tortures dissidents, and besieges restive cities. More than this, it represents a claim on what the limits of the “Arab” or “Syrian” or other national identity may include; this claim categorically and short-sightedly excludes any al...
...isappear. By toying with the digital presence of Sony and the CIA, Anon has established the faceless mass as a player, however symbolic, in the power games between governments and corporations. By providing an open forum for dissidents in Iran and Tunisia, it has advocated for freedom of expression, but has been equally willing to silence its own opponents in petty disputes. Anon seems to be deeply fragmented and threatened by internal strife. O...
...cy. Intellectuals, students, and women have formed groups in the hopes of effecting change in the Iranian government. But the stronghold of the Supreme Leader and the ruling clerics has held down many of these groups. Leading dissidents such as Akbar Ganji, who was repeatedly jailed for his views, and even the former reformist President Mohammad Khatami were unable to subvert the clerics. The expediency and brutality with which the Revolutionary...
...and will become more accountable to its bottom line than to Web 2.0 idealism. Microsoft was once a serial antitrust violator, and as Moglen pointed out, Google has cooperated with the Chinese government’s crackdown on online dissidents. As Facebook gets bigger, the possibility of reining it in becomes more and more faint. But at this point, what truly counts for the first Web 2.0-socialized generation is that we are only “at the beginning of som...
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