July 06, 2009
Do Uighers "Yearn for Independence"?
News of the "bloodiest civil unrest since Tiananmen" in far western Xinjiang Autonomous Region, specifically the capital city Urumqi, comes primarily from two sources: western media (AP and British tabloids) and the Uyghur American Association based in Washington, DC. Dig deeper and most quotes and opinion on the street violence in Urumqi comes directly from the Uyghur American Association itself. The group supports something called the "Uyghur Human Rights Project" which is paid for by US taxpayer dollars. The Uyghur American Association is in fact the sixth largest recepient of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) grants on China.
The NED is Ronald Reagan's private diplomacy organization run from its inception in 1984 by a man named Carl Gersham. The NED supports 4 Uygher dissident groups. The amount of money and number of groups supported by NED in Xinjiang has been growing steadily for years and far exceeds the NED's efforts in neighboring Tibet.
Any news reports taking at face value information from the Uyghur American Association should be read CRITICALLY.
Incidentally, reports are that the unrest may have "spread" to Kashgar where one report quoted an eyewitness saying that there was shouting but "no violence."
Labels: dissident, human rights, media
November 07, 2007
Waterboard Yahoo!
America’s rich family newspapers chose today to feature China as front page news with lurid headlines and anguished photos from yesterday’s “Do as I say, not as I do” hearings in which Yahoo! was slapped around for not exporting ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ to China along with its free and largely anonymous Internet services. So the papers tell us that Yahoo! caved in to Beijing and allowed Chinese authorities to victimize a journalist.
That Congress claimed moral righteousness over China the same week it essentially condoned torture with the approval of President Bush’s latest choice to be U.S. Attorney General is particularly absurd. That the press plays it up is all the more hypocritical. And newspapers wonder why they are nearing extinction.
That Congress claimed moral righteousness over China the same week it essentially condoned torture with the approval of President Bush’s latest choice to be U.S. Attorney General is particularly absurd. That the press plays it up is all the more hypocritical. And newspapers wonder why they are nearing extinction.
Labels: china, congress, dissident, hypocrisy, newspapers, powers that be, torture, waterboard, yahoo
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