More human rights concerns

The government of China just doesn't get it. It really is shocking to me to see how stubbornly this government clings to power by suppressing the free exchange of ideas. Many of you are too young to remember the Tiananmen Square uprising, but the memories of the 1989 protests by students who wanted more democracy in China still haunt me. They were crushed by the Chinese military and hundreds died in pursuit of liberty.

Today we get news, that is so commonplace that it doesn't get many headlines. Three Chinese intellectuals who have been critical of the government in their writings (mostly on the internet) have been jailed. Although it is believed that they were released after the police copied everything on their computer hard drives, it is said that these detentions are indications of a new crack-down in China on those who favor democratic reforms.

They are brave people. Here is how they are described by the Washington Post:

The detained dissidents -- Yu Jie, 31, an essayist who once called on the party
to remove Mao Zedong's embalmed body from public display; Liu Xiaobo, 49, a
well-known writer who has already been jailed three times for criticizing the
party; and Zhang Zuhua, 48, an author and political theorist -- represent the
more daring end of a spectrum of prominent intellectuals who favor greater
political openness in the country and have been under official pressure in
recent weeks.

I found the word's of Yu's wife to be quite defiant in her bravery:

Reached by phone Monday night, Yu's wife, Liu Min, said police told her
that her husband was "suspected of endangering state security." The officers did
not provide details, she said, but one said she should have stopped her husband
"from writing essays on the Internet."
She also said police were preventing her from leaving her home and had ordered her not to tell "outsiders" about her husband's arrest. "They severely threatened me, but I'm not scared. I have to save my husband," she said.