China - A Country to Look Up to

The issue is not the right of China to dispense justice, but rather the naive and juvenile delusions many people have about China and how advanced it is, how tolerant and humane it has become.

Until China erases these indelibly permanent marks, changes its practice of inhumane treatment of prisoners, barbaric treatment of the Tibetan people, enacts human rights laws to protect its citizens from abuses and violations by the government ... until it stops killing off opposition, imprisoning dissenters, and opening China to freedom and liberty - until then, nothing it is or may become amounts to anything more than a bully that needs to be quartered.  For those foolish Americans who believe a Chinese super power could balance out the US - I only wish them a long life - to live long enough to see China collapse, and the truth made public. 




British citizen Akmal Shaikh executed in China


Akmal Shaikh, the British man arrested in China over drug smuggling, has been put to death, the Briitsh Foreign Office has confirmed.


29 Dec 2009
The Telegraph


Gordon Brown, the prime minister, condemned the execution "in the strongest terms" saying he was "appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted."



Shaikh, 53, was due to be killed - probably by a shot to the head - in Urumqi, the capital of the far western Xinjiang region, at 10:30 am (0230 GMT) after China's Supreme Court rejected a bid for clemency.

His family, the British government and the British human rights charity Reprieve had been campaigning until the last minute for Shaikh to be spared the death penalty, but China refused to bow to international pressure.

Shaikh's supporters said the father-of-three suffered from bipolar disorder and that his illness should have been a mitigating factor in his sentencing.

But China defended its use of capital punishment and said the evidence of Shaikh's mental illness was "insufficient".

Shaikh is the first national from a European Union country to be executed in China in 50 years, according to Reprieve.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown repeatedly raised Shaikh's case with China's leaders and appealed for clemency, but to no avail.

Reacting to news that the execution had been carried out, Mr Brown said: "I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken.

"At this time our thoughts are with Mr Shaikh's family and friends and I send them our sincere condolences," he said.

Authorities in China have not yet announced that the execution has taken place.

Shaikh, from London, was arrested in September 2007 in Urumqi with four about nine pounds of heroin. Campaigners claimed a criminal gang duped him into carrying the drugs.

He was sentenced to death in December last year and lost his final appeal earlier this month in China's Supreme Court.

Two of Shaikh's cousins visited him in Urumqi on Monday and told him of his fate.

The Supreme Court said the evidence provided by the British side of Shaikh's mental illness was "insufficient", according to a statement published on the central government's website.

It justified its use of capital punishment as a deterrent, saying: "To use the death penalty for extremely threatening and serious crimes involving drugs is beneficial to instilling fear and preventing drug crimes."

Reprieve said it had medical evidence that Shaikh suffered from a delusion he was going to China to record a hit single that would usher in world peace. New witnesses have emerged to back that claim.

Two British men, Paul Newberry and Gareth Saunders, both quoted by Reprieve, said they had helped him record a song in Poland and it was clear that he was mentally disturbed.

Mr Newberry said Shaikh "was clearly suffering from delusions and it seemed to me he was a particularly severe case of manic depressive."

According to the London-based rights group Amnesty International, China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined, but the actual numbers put to death remain a state secret.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
China

Amnesty: It's all Israel's Fault ... (and maybe a little Hamas).

Palestinians

“Until now we don’t understand why. We want peace; and we want an investigation; we want to know why me and my sisters have been orphaned. Why did they kill our parents, our family?” Fathiya Mousa, whose parents and siblings were killed in an Israeli air strike while sitting in their yard (see Chapter 1.1.2).

Imagine starting off your report with the above quote. Is it a bit ... biased / slanted / subjective?

Amnesty International did. Their pdf file / report at this hyperlink or if that is too lengthy a process, try HERE.

At 11.30am on 27 December 2008, without warning, Israeli forces began a
devastating bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip codenamed Operation “Cast
Lead”. Its stated aim was to end rocket attacks into Israel by armed groups
affiliated with Hamas and other Palestinian factions. By 18 January 2009,
when unilateral ceasefires were announced by both Israel and Hamas, some
1,400 Palestinians had been killed, including some 300 children and
hundreds of other unarmed civilians, and large areas of Gaza had been razed to the
ground, leaving many thousands homeless and the already dire economy in
ruins.

Much of the destruction was wanton and resulted from direct attacks on
civilian objects as well as indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish
between legitimate military targets and civilian objects. Such attacks
violated fundamental provisions of international humanitarian law, notably
the prohibition on direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects (the
principle of distinction), the prohibition on indiscriminate or disproportionate
attacks, and the prohibition on collective punishment.

Hundreds of civilians were killed in attacks carried out using high-precision weapons – airdelivered bombs and missiles, and tank shells. Others, including women and
children, were shot at short range when posing no threat to the lives of the
Israeli soldiers. Aerial bombardments launched from Israeli F-16 combat
aircraft targeted and destroyed civilian homes without warning, killing and
injuring scores of their inhabitants, often while they slept.

Children playing on the roofs of their homes or in the street and other civilians going
about their daily business, as well as medical staff attending the wounded
were killed in broad daylight by Hellfire and other highly accurate missiles
launched from helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, and
by precision projectiles fired from tanks. Disturbing questions remain unanswered as to why such high-precision weapons, whose operators can see even small details of their targets and which can accurately strike even fast moving vehicles,1 killed so many children and other civilians.

[...]

In several cases Israeli soldiers also used civilians, including children, as
“human shields”, endangering their lives by forcing them to remain in or near
houses which they took over and used as military positions. Some were forced
to carry out dangerous tasks such as inspecting properties or objects suspected of being booby-trapped. Soldiers also took position and launched attacks from and around inhabited houses, exposing local residents to the danger of attacks or of being caught in the crossfire.

Amnesty Report:

“I want aggressiveness – if there’s someone suspicious on the upper floor of a
house, we’ll shell it. If we have suspicions about a house, we’ll take it down… There will be no hesitation… Nobody will deliberate – let the mistakes be over their lives, not ours.” An Israeli company commander in a security briefing to soldiers during Operation “Cast Lead”.11

What the original source says is:

"We're going to war," he told his soldiers. "We're not doing routine security work or anything like that. I want aggressiveness - if there's someone suspicious on the upper floor of a house, we'll shell it. If we have suspicions about a house, we'll take it down." "There will be no hesitation," the commander continued. "If it's us or them, it'll be them. If someone approaches us unarmed, shoot in the air. If he keeps going, that man is dead. Nobody will deliberate - let the mistakes be over their lives, not ours."




Are the two accounts different. Yes.


We live on two different planets.


I don't wish to live on their planet.

To be honest, I have never deeply felt very much affection or affinity for Amnesty, BUT after reading this full report I can say with certainty - I will never value anything they have to say again - unless it is an apology.

What is funnier is the Los Angeles Times had an opinion piece claiming Amnesty criticized both sides equally. I read the report and found very little about Hamas and their role. When it did surface it was separate from actions taken by Israel rather than as the cause of actions taken.

I wanted to, well, I did several times, stop reading and walk outside and take deep breaths. It is frustrating to say the very least.

Really want to be frustrated!!
- Some of those civilians Israel killed during the Operation can be found at this hyperlink.

I was then sent the following link for a YOUTUBE video. After I watched it, I really wanted to throw up.

















Hamas