Dec
27
Communist Chinese Authoritarianism at its Paranoid Worst.
Filed Under China, Personal Freedom | Leave a Comment
I recently watched the film “The Lives of Others.” The German language film (with sub-titles) shows life in the mid-1980s in the German Democractic Republic (GDR, or as it was commonly known, East Germany), an authoritarian communist regime that fell almost twenty years ago, along with the Berlin Wall. The film features the Stasi, the GDR’s secret police force. It was a time and a place where the slightest criticism of the regime, the merest hint of disloyalty, might earn you a visit from Stasi thugs, a round of interrogation and torture and maybe some time in prison or a psychiatric hospital. It was a time and a place where a lunatic fringe of paranoid bullies ruled a nation.
The GDR may be gone, but we still have the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
From the Associated Press on Christmas day:
Authorities in Tibet have detained 59 people accused of disseminating rumors aimed at inciting ethnic tension and have cracked down on illegal downloads of “reactionary music” online, Chinese state media reported Thursday.Law enforcement officers have found 48 cases of “rumor spreading” since March, when anti-government riots rocked the Tibetan capital Lhasa, a report by the China Tibet News said, citing a local public security official.
Xin Yuanming, deputy chief of the Lhasa public security bureau, said those being investigated were instigated by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, according to the report. It did not name those detained nor give other details.
The rumors posed a threat to public security by fanning ethnic hatred and damaging the image of China’s ruling Communist Party, the report said.
Arrested for spreading rumors that might damge the image of the communist regime…the old GDR and its Stasi would be proud.
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