Important anniversary - Tiananmen Square 4 June 1989

[Scotty72]

Can you believe it was 22 years ago when the Chinese government massacred its own students who gathered to protest for freedom. :(

Now, they buy our dirt - so we did forgive & completely forget.

Note to Gaddafi: quick, buy some of our dirt and we will forgive you. :eek:

Scotty

[PH005]

Gaddafi could afford it. Did you hear how much Gold he personally owns ? 144 TONNES. Thats right.

[Scotty72]

Sounds like my mother-out-law's jewellery collection. :th3:

[dbax]

hard to believe its been 22 yrs, those images of the student standing in front of that column of tanks are burnt into my memory.
As to the middle east its not just Gaddafi, look at Syria and what they did to that poor 13 yr old boy, tortured and killed him, then returned his mutilated body to his family as an example to the masses.

[Bennymiata]

22 years gone, and still the human rights in China are woefull.

I have been going into China since the early 70's on a pretty regular basis, and while there have been many advances, human rights is not one of them.
When I first started going there on business, everyone was still wearing the Chairman Mao uniforms with a copy of the Little Red Book in their top left pocket!
I have spoken to various people in China over the years who were arrested for no reason and gaoled for up to 10 years, without a charge ever being laid against them.
If you are charged with murder over there, you face an almost instant court trial, and then taken out the back and shot in the head - with no chance of an appeal or even to time to get a good lawyer.

I'll tell you a little, ture story.
The boss of a freight company our factory used to use over there was arrested because he made a lot of money pretty quickly, so the government thought he was smuggling goods.
They investigated him for a couple of years, but couldn't find anything wrong with him or his company or associates.
However, they were sure he was doing something illegal.
So one day, he was having lunch with an old friend from school in a nice restaraunt, when 12 policemen came into the restaraunt and told him that he was under arrest.
They then turned ot his friend and asked who he was. He said he was just a friend from school days.
So, the cops said to him that he must also be involved - even though they hadn't seen or talked to each other for some years as they just ran into each other in the town that day.
Even though they had no evidence of any wrongdoing, the freight company owner got 15 years prison, and his friend got 5 years!

As far as these other dictators are concerned, they aren't in power to help anyone but themselves.
Ghadafi, Arafat and all the other leaders of countries in this area are just there to rip off their people and hang the consequences.
If someone objects, shoot him! That's their motto.
They say Ghadafi has stolen over $40Billion from his own people, and Arafat ripped off over $8Billion from the Palestinians (and they reckon Israel is the bad man there - sheesh!), yet no-one ever takes these rip-off merchants to task.
This is why none of these countries have an economy that is worth 2 bob, because any money coming in is just taken away by the dictator and the people are left to virtually starve.
Look at North Korea.
The population there are told that they are living better than people in any other country, even though they are dropping dead in the street from starvation.
Their imperious leader meanwhile has everything you could dream of, and then 3 times as much more!

Did you know that 3 religous Muslim countries have been appointed to the Human Rights Commission on the UN?
They are now going to tell us how we should handle human rights, while their own governments are still chopping off arms and legs, and stoning raped women to death.

[James T]

22 years gone, and still the human rights in China are woefull.
...

As they are in the USA, UK, rest of Europe, Australia...

[kiwi]

im interested in your line of thought re this statement ?

[James T]

im interested in your line of thought re this statement ?

Who's thought on which statement? :)

[kiwi]

As they are in the USA, UK, rest of Europe, Australia...

thsi statement, why are our human rights woeful - I dont believe this to be true personally, but it's just my opinion.

[James T]

thsi statement, why are our human rights woeful - I dont believe this to be true personally, but it's just my opinion.

No worries, wasn't sure if you were referring to me or someone else in the thread. :)

I'll try not to ramble on too much, but for a starter, I don't think aboriginals have been treated too well, and still aren't. Then there are ever increasing police powers, the fact that all cops carry guns. The bloke who was shot dead by police over the road from me last month. The exporting of ideals to foreign lands who didn't ask for it. Support of free trade. And a few other things.

Main point though was that yes China have a poor human rights record, but so does near enough every other country in the world.

But they're 'dirty commies' so they must be worse, right. :) There was even a ridiculous pseudo-article on some Aussie 'news' website recently with the title "Know Your Commies" (or something very similar). Turned out to be a horribly inaccurate and nonsensical rambling bordering on out-right racism - despite that, I bet it will still add to the xenophobic views held by many people unfortunately.



[...]Arafat ripped off over $8Billion from the Palestinians (and they reckon Israel is the bad man there - sheesh!)

Well, some people, thankfully count war-crimes and acts bordering on genocide as more important than money. :o

EDIT: This is in danger of going way off topic. 22 years is a big chunk of my life, so I wasn't aware of this all going on at the time (being 4 and a half years old). I think we may see a a few similarly important moments in the near future.

[Bennymiata]

I agree with you James T.
The Palestinians, and their various governments have committed atrocious war crimes against its own citizens, and many of these have been far worse than any acts made on them by the Israelis.
For example, Hammas murdered over 11,000 Palestinians when they wouldn't vote the way Hammas wanted them to, and still continue to send rockets and morters to try and kill innocent Israelis too. To the tune of around 4,000 rockets per year.
If say Newcastle started doing the same to Sydney, what should the Sydneyites do about it?
Congratulate them?
Please remember, the number one aim of the Palestinians, the Syrians, Hammas, Hezbollah etc., is to wipe out a democratic country similar to ours and replace it with their own barbaric systems of toture, peadophilia and poverty. They've had lots of opportunities to make peace (Arafat himslef walked out on 2 peace talks just as Israel agreed to give them what they wanted for peace), but they would rather kill people instead, and many that they kill are their own!
Israel certainly does NOT have anything in their constitution that says anything about murdering anyone, but these groups certainly do.

Oh, one more thing, the greatest supporters of the Palestinian people is, in fact, Israel.
Israel supply them with their water, their electricity, money for hospitals (and free health care for any Palestinian that can't get help in their areas) and also supply weapons and money to pay for their police forces as well as giving generous amounts to them to try and get their businesses going etc.
NO Arab country helps them anywhere near as much as Israel does, and if you think differently, you are obviously reading the wrong facts.

If you think the wall is wrong, then you should also blame Egypt, as they built and paid for half of the wall, meanwhile, the Jordanians just machine gun the Palestinians who try and cross the border, yet you don't hear anything about this in the press very often.

[Scotty72]

Whilst I agree that Australia's recent treatment of refugees has been little short of appalling: as has our record with our indigenous population, I think we fall well behind China and much of the Middle East (including Isreal) if the bad human rights league table.

Scotty

[kiwi]

I think Australia's treatment of aboriginals is more a reflection on the prevalence and ongoing persistence of deep seated rascism in Australa more than it is about human rights

[Scotty72]

I think Australia's treatment of aboriginals is more a reflection on the prevalence and ongoing persistence of deep seated rascism in Australa more than it is about human rights

I find your proposition very difficult to argue with.

Mostly because I think you are right :)