From Comment is free:
The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights witnesses more human rights violations in China. A couple of days ago, police in Shanghai detained Liu Xiaobo, an intellectual and human rights activist, who had been in and out of prison in the last two decades because of his activism.
The reason this time is the ’08 Charter, a document calling for constitutional reform in China, initiated by Liu Xiaobo and his colleagues, and signed by more than 300 people, including me. Hearing the news, I felt not only angry, but also pity towards the authorities whose fierce reaction can’t disguise the fear underneath. One will always claim and protect one’s rights. No authority can stop that.
As ordinary people, we just want to live a normal and peaceful life. But we want to live it with dignity. The coming economic crisis has made many people more alert to their rights, or lack of them. In China, the current crisis is not only the consequence of a global economic crisis, but also the result of a corrupt and authoritarian one-party system. Many people live a hard life not because of the downturn of the world economy, but because their rights have been taken away by the authorities. I know many intellectuals like Liu Xiabo who champion a peaceful and non-violence approach to achieve political reform. However, others may not be so patient. There have already been numerous instances of social unrest in China recently. To make things worse, the authorities seem to know only one response: to suppress any incident, which inevitably worsens the crisis.
