NationStates Jolt Archive

This is from my e-mail account, an e-mail received from Amnesty International:

"Imagine being accused of espionage and jailed for something as simple as sending an email message. For many journalists in Vietnam and China, this nightmare scenario has become reality.

Nguyen Vu Binh was jailed in Vietnam in 2002 for writing and posting articles about democracy on the Internet and campaigning for human rights. But thanks to tireless work by Amnesty supporters like you, Vietnamese authorities freed Nguyen Vu Binh in June after serving over two-thirds of his seven-year prison term on baseless espionage charges. He has since been reunited with his wife and two daughters in Hanoi.

By joining Amnesty International today, you'll be supporting hundreds of people like journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, who just want to express their opinions freely online. Click here:
https://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/lookup.asp?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=3211693&msource=W79SMD2J

Nguyen Vu Binh's release is a great relief to all who campaigned for his freedom - but it's still too early to celebrate. Vietnamese authorities continue to punish citizens who dare to freely express their opinions online. Today, Vietnam is second only to China for the number of cyber-dissidents it has thrown behind bars for nothing more than peaceful self-expression.

In China, journalist Shi Tao remains in prison for sharing information with a U.S.-based website using his Yahoo! email account. With information supplied to government authorities by Yahoo!, Shi Tao was convicted and received a ten-year sentence.

Please stand with us to stop the human rights abuses in Vietnam, China and in so many other countries by making a tax deductible membership gift to Amnesty International today. Courageous individuals like Nguyen Vu Binh and Shi Tao risk their lives each and every day to defend the principles of free speech and free association that you and I believe in. But they need our help right now! Click here:
https://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/lookup.asp?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=3211693&msource=W79SMD2J

Thank you for being a part of our vibrant global community. I look forward to welcoming you as our newest member of Amnesty International today. Click here:
https://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/lookup.asp?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=3211693&msource=W79SMD2J

Sincerely,

Larry Cox
Executive Director
Amnesty International USA"

Don't listen to the poisonous lies of the cultural imperialists of Amnesty. They wish only to subjugate the world under a brutal hegemony of human rights.

On the one hand Yahoo is just complying to local law, which is what they have to do if they are to remain active there. On the other hand complying leads to violation of human rights. Would overall the situation be better if Yahoo weren't active there (And similarly google, and well, every well known internet company)?
I think the people there would have an even harder time getting a message out online, if that were so. It may be the lesser of two evils.

However; naturally those companies should lobby for increased human rights, even if in the meanwhile they have to comply to the local laws (well, sufficiently to not get booted, anyway).

Who could imagine
That they would freak out in washington, d.c.
D.c. d.c. d.c. d.c. d.c.
It cant happen here
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
It cant happen here
It cant happen here
Everybodys safe and it cant happen here
No freaks for us
It cant happen here
Everybodys clean and it cant happen here
No, no, it wont happen here
Im telling you it cant
It wont happen here
(bop bop didi bop didi bop bop bop)
Plastic folks, you know
It wont happen here
Youre safe, mama
Youre safe, baby


Frank Zappa

Don't listen to the poisonous lies of the cultural imperialists of Amnesty. They wish only to subjugate the world under a brutal hegemony of human rights.

O.K. now you're just being silly. They just want to stand up for human rights (unlike, in my opinion, Liberty, who, in my opinion, want to put the human "rights" of criminals above the rights of victims)

On the one hand Yahoo is just complying to local law, which is what they have to do if they are to remain active there. On the other hand complying leads to violation of human rights. Would overall the situation be better if Yahoo weren't active there (And similarly google, and well, every well known internet company)?
I think the people there would have an even harder time getting a message out online, if that were so. It may be the lesser of two evils.

However; naturally those companies should lobby for increased human rights, even if in the meanwhile they have to comply to the local laws (well, sufficiently to not get booted, anyway).

Companies manage to give people the run-around when they want to, using careful tactics to make sure the customers still give them a chance - Yahoo could have easily done this with China.

Who could imagine
That they would freak out in washington, d.c.
D.c. d.c. d.c. d.c. d.c.
It cant happen here
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
It cant happen here
It cant happen here
Everybodys safe and it cant happen here
No freaks for us
It cant happen here
Everybodys clean and it cant happen here
No, no, it wont happen here
Im telling you it cant
It wont happen here
(bop bop didi bop didi bop bop bop)
Plastic folks, you know
It wont happen here
Youre safe, mama
Youre safe, baby


Frank Zappa

Want a bet on whether you're safe there?

Companies manage to give people the run-around when they want to, using careful tactics to make sure the customers still give them a chance - Yahoo could have easily done this with China.

The problem is, the whole "giving people the run-around" only works in countries where the police have significant restraints on their actions. Where enforcing certain actions has to go through a process, you get a trial, you can appeal that trial, etc etc. There's the whole process of law that needs to be adhered to, and if you know how, you can drag that process on for a long time.

In china on the other hand, they just arrest you and haul you away. If you're lucky. If they're in a bad mood they just shoot you in the face.

I symphatize and understand the problem, my family member in Cuba works in an office with computers in a government owned and run company like all companys in Cuba.

She has a better job than I have ever had, a job that would pay great in any nation of the world except Cuba and she drives a bicycle to work and has to depend on Cuban American Family Remittances $ to live a little bit better Cuba style.

We used to communicate by E-mail from her work center office computer, we never talked good or bad about Fidel, or Cuba, just how are you, how's the family that kind of stuff.

Until one day we must have slipped up. the next thing I know, I get an E-Mail response from the Cuban government, blocked for political reasons, which she carefully confirmed later on in a letter because she dosent even trust a private letter, I guess we must have said something the Cuban government did not like, I am not the first or last Cuban American this has happend too or will happen too.

I used to work with 2 North Koreans and a nice Vietnamese lady, we used to share storys of North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba and found many common storys.

The Vietnamese lady said to me many times, Cuba and Vietnam are the same there is no freedom, what I like best about America - USA - is the freedom, and that in America Cubans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Italians or where ever you are from, we are all Americans, in Vietnam if you are Vietnamese you are Vietnamese, if you are Chinese you are Chinese thats the way it is.

Yea, China is a scary place. And while my initial reaction is that the companies are just trying to make money, but in the end they'd just be shut out anyway and the control would continue- of course it might be more noticed story if Yahoo was blocked from china because of this issue.

On the one hand Yahoo is just complying to local law, which is what they have to do if they are to remain active there. On the other hand complying leads to violation of human rights. Would overall the situation be better if Yahoo weren't active there (And similarly google, and well, every well known internet company)?
I think the people there would have an even harder time getting a message out online, if that were so. It may be the lesser of two evils.

However; naturally those companies should lobby for increased human rights, even if in the meanwhile they have to comply to the local laws (well, sufficiently to not get booted, anyway).

Actually Yahoo is the worst of the lot according to a Chinese Activist I heard on the radio. You are correct about doing business. Even the Activist said they all do. However, Google will turn over only so much and will wait for requests from the government. Yahoo is practically sprinting over to the government with as much detail as possible whenever the filters catch something.

The Activist said to use google over yahoo.....

Of course, it is also true that the very ability to provide internet access is a significant benefit to the people of China; even if companies like Google and Yahoo engage in censorship, the positive effects of internet access will help lay the framework for future reform in the country.

This is one of those issues that's really pretty tough to view one way or another because it's challenging to weigh the benefits versus the drawbacks; internet censorship is obviously a reprehensible thing, but it's also true the Chinese would be much less capable of making any moves towards democracy if they had no internet access whatsoever. Given the tendency towards reform that will only accelerate in the second term of President Hu and the rise of the next generation of Chinese leadership, it is likely this situation will improve.