I've been reading tonight a report into human rights abuses in China: particularly practitioners of falun gong, which I had never heard of until tonight. I don't understand what falun gong (or falun dafa) actually is but here is a report upon its early days in the 1990's by Ian Johnson.
The 2010 United Nations report on the horrifying medieval methods the Chinese authorities are now apparently using to stamp out falun gong needs to be known more widely. (It includes the modern equivalent of the rack and frequently ends in the death of the victim.)
When people mention" human rights violations" in China do we ever really know what that actually means? I've never heard it being discussed or debated or even qualified. The trouble is that the words have such a wide range that they have become almost trivial to us in the west. "A violation of my human rights" can mean anything from not being able to walk into a shop upwards. In China it can mean being tortured to death. The words have become inadequate.
When people mention" human rights violations" in China do we ever really know what that actually means? I've never heard it being discussed or debated or even qualified. The trouble is that the words have such a wide range that they have become almost trivial to us in the west. "A violation of my human rights" can mean anything from not being able to walk into a shop upwards. In China it can mean being tortured to death. The words have become inadequate.
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