Bloodthirsty Liberal

I don’t know, is it me, or is it China?

A court in China’s Xinjiang region has sentenced a further five people to death for their role in July’s deadly ethnic riots, the worst in decades.

The sentences bring the number of people condemned to die over the riots to a total of 22.

Well, maybe they were incorrigible killers.

But him?

China has accused foreign diplomats of meddling in its internal affairs, after some were critical of the trial of prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

The country’s foreign ministry urged those who had expressed concerns about the trial to respect its legal process.

…

“Some officials from some countries’ embassies in China released so-called statements, which is a gross interference in China’s judicial internal affairs,” Ms Jiang said, adding that these violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

She expressed China’s “strong dissatisfaction” over their actions, adding that China’s “judicial sovereignty” should be respected.

Mr Liu, a prominent government critic and veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, could be jailed for 15 years if convicted.

A writer and former university professor, he has been in jail since 2008, after being arrested for writing a document calling for political reform in China.

Known as Charter 08 and released to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it called for greater freedoms and democratic reforms in China, including an end to Communist one-party rule.

The trial has been heavily criticised by right groups, with Human Rights Watch (HRW) describing it as “a travesty of justice”.

I’m as guilty as anyone, but why did everyone know Andrei Sakharov’s name, yet so few know Liu’s?

But this one may be the most depressing of all:

A Chinese man has been jailed for 12 years for killing and eating a rare Indochinese tiger.

Kang Wannian, a villager from the southern province of Yunnan, said he had encountered the tiger while out fishing, and killed it in self-defence.

The animal may have been China’s only wild Indochinese tiger, which is on the brink of extinction.

Four other men were jailed for sharing the tiger meal and covering up the incident.

“Call the Joneses! Look what wandered in for dinner.”

I have no way of knowing if this scurrilous charge is true, but since one complaint about the bloggers is that we’re not “responsible” like the mainstream media, I’ll just pass it on without examination—as they do all the time with libels about Israel.

I feel so journalistic! Call me Scoop. Call me Chris Hedges.

Every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries, according to a human rights organization that is visiting Israel starting Sunday.

“Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth,” said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities.

…

El Shafie said that between 200-300 million Christians are being persecuted in the world, 80 percent of whom lived in Muslim countries and the rest in communist and other countries.

Maybe so, but do they build settlements?

Like a “human rights activist” scorned:

And then there is Darfur–where, since 2003, government-supported militia have left 300,000 dead and 2.7 million people internally displaced. The situation was so dire that in April 2007, Susan Rice, now the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, wrote, “The U.S. should press for a Chapter VII U.N. resolution that issues Sudan an ultimatum: accept unconditional deployment of the U.N. force within one week, or face military consequences . . . If the U.S. fails to gain U.N. support, we should act without it as [we] did in 1999 in Kosovo.” The International Criminal Court then issued arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the first for a sitting head of state, and other Sudanese leaders implicated in the atrocities in Darfur.

Through all of this, we have been waiting and wondering what the outcome would be to save the people of Sudan and help break the cycle of impunity.

The Obama administration recently unveiled its new policy of engagement with Sudan, aimed first at securing the full implementation of the treaty that ended the north-south Sudanese civil war. While the administration maintained it will not deal with al-Bashir or any other official charged with arrest, it has not yet announced any serious moves to enforce the decision of the ICC and execute its warrants.

There will be pressure on the United States and its partners to bring stability to Sudan, even at the expense of criminal accountability. Regardless of the rationale, the end would be the same: victims left without justice while perpetrators walk away.

Angelina, sweetie—they don’t vote. Trust me, if ACORN could register Darfurians, they would, faster than you can say “janjaweed genocide” (three times, fast), but they can’t. So “victims left without justice” get what the rest of us get who don’t trust, believe, like this president of ours: a heaping, steaming pile of bubkes.

I’m sorry. And I have a shoulder to cry on if you need one.

Mia Farrow is similarly disillusioned (sorry, honey, no shoulder for you):

The Enough Project at the Center for American Progress today released the following statement in reaction to news that the government of Sudan had arrested several members of the opposition political party, the SPLM:

“It was fanciful of the United States and other donor nations to think that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), which has ruled Sudan with an iron fist and tolerated no peaceful dissent, would suddenly loosen its grip and allow peaceful elections and their necessary precursor: peaceful freedom of assembly,” said Enough Co-founder John Prendergast. … “President Obama should recognize that any benchmarks-based policy of incentives and pressures will have no credibility unless consequences are imposed immediately when such an obvious benchmark like today’s denial of a basic element of the existing North-South peace deal — freedom of assembly for the elections — has been violated.”

We’ll excuse the convoluted syntax—but the wooly-headed thinking is inexcusable. President Obama can recognize only his reflection in the mirror, nothing else.

BTW, I don’t include the link, because Mia has the tendency to post upsetting pictures of starving and deformed children—I understand why, even if I don’t approve—as well as one-sided and ignorant attacks on Israel—which I understand (bleeding hearts tend to bleed a lot less for bleeding Israelis) and don’t approve.

Why am I so dismissive of well-intentioned, big-hearted people, with nothing but kindness and empathy in their souls?

Oh, I don’t know. You tell me:

THE NON-GOVERNMENTAL human rights watchdogs that were created to offset the unethical behavior and biases of anti-democratic governments, have become accomplices. Superpowers like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), and similar groups work closely with and support the agendas of the UNHRC and other international frameworks.

They joined officials from Arab countries in campaigning on behalf of the Goldstone Report. Instead of speaking truth to this blatant abuse of power, officials of these self-proclaimed human rights groups are part of the problem, and most journalists blindly follow their lead. The past year has seen even greater cooperation between the UN and NGOs in distorting human rights values beyond recognition. Human Rights Watch was caught raising funds from wealthy members of Saudi Arabia’s elite. Instead of leading the campaign against the abuses imposed by the Wahhabi religious police, this “watchdog” hosted a member of the Shura council at a dinner which featured more Israel-bashing and sinister warnings of the power of the “pro-Israel lobby.” And HRW’s “senior military analyst” and author of numerous attacks on Israel was suspended, while questions were raised regarding his professional qualifications and credibility.

In parallel, Amnesty International and other groups continue to warp human rights and international law into ideological platforms for fighting Western democracy and open societies. Like HRW, a highly disproportionate percentage of Amnesty’s reports and campaigns focus on criticizing the United States and NATO countries for alleged infractions in Iraq and Afghanistan, while terrorists and their state supporters get relatively little attention.

BUT IN 2009, there were also some signs that the “halo effect,” which protects human rights frameworks from scrutiny and criticism, has begun to deteriorate. Robert Bernstein, the founder of HRW, published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he denounced his own organization for betraying its moral principles. Although HRW officials launched a campaign to discredit Bernstein and other critics, the charges are too serious to be ignored, and HRW will need an entirely new and unbiased leadership to restore its credibility.

In addition, the April 2009 attempt to reproduce the catastrophic 2001 Durban NGO Forum - in which 1500 radical NGOs used a UN anti-racism conference to promote anti-Semitism - was defeated. Canada led the way, and this process highlighted the need to redesign the entire UN human rights structure.

I don’t have any clever or conclusive remarks about Darfur, or any of the other butt-holes of humanity for that matter. If President Obama can pretend they don’t exist, so can I. And I’ll be damned if I can think of a single “consequence” (as the director of the Enough Project calls for above) that people would be willing to impose that would change a damn thing.

We’re not willing, and Sudan won’t change. What else is on?

PS: Here’s what (how could I forget?):

I have been in Oslo, Norway the past few days working with the Oslo peace community in their opposition to Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

…

I sat with my hosts and watched the speeches given by the Chairman of the Nobel committee (who seemed like he was going to bounce off the platform and float over to Obama and begin french kiss him in ecstasy), and the Laureate and we were shocked and appalled at the way the speeches gave legitimacy and Robber Class honor to the “necessity” of war.

The protests today were large, energetic, youthful, and angry! It is nice to see some international rejection of the “hope-nosis” that has been infecting our world with rosey-colored violence and gold-plated oppression.

“Hope-nosis”—brilliant!

I know it’s not original with her, but still…

You can put a Human Rights label on a pig—but it’s still a pig.

The UN Human Rights Commission is, in the words of Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: “l we’d have to be talkin’ about one charming mother[bleepin’] pig. I mean he’d have to be ten times more charmin’ than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I’m sayin’?

We sure do.

If you have the time and the stomach, I can’t recommend highly enough an hour spent with Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant in discussion of Canada’s Human Rights Commission.

Plenty of play-by-play analysis at SteynOnline.

To summarize, Libya and Sudan (or whoever) good; Steyn and Levant bad. Just so we’re clear on the new world order.

It’s not what you might think it is, but when you read this, I ask you to cite any statement more disgraceful, any initiative more insulting to the history of this country:

The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.

President Obama chose to join the Council despite the fact that the Organization of the Islamic Conference holds the balance of power and human rights abusers are among its lead actors, including China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Islamic states quickly interpreted the president’s penchant for “engagement” as meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs. Few would have predicted, however, that the shift would begin with America’s most treasured freedom.

…

Privately, other Western governments were taken aback and watched the weeks of negotiations with dismay as it became clear that American negotiators wanted consensus at all costs. In introducing the resolution on Thursday, October 1–adopted by consensus the following day–the ranking U.S. diplomat, Chargé d’Affaires Douglas Griffiths, crowed:

“The United States is very pleased to present this joint project with Egypt.”

If you’re not already throwing up in your mouth, you should be. The United States making joint human rights policy with Egypt? E-freakin’-gypt???

What common policy do we share with Egypt? I hope you’re sitting down. Soon, you’ll be lying down:

The new resolution, championed by the Obama administration, has a number of disturbing elements. It emphasizes that “the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . .” which include taking action against anything meeting the description of “negative racial and religious stereotyping.” It also purports to “recognize . . . the moral and social responsibilities of the media” and supports “the media’s elaboration of voluntary codes of professional ethical conduct” in relation to “combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

…

The idea of protecting the human rights “of religions” instead of individuals is a favorite of those countries that do not protect free speech and which use religion–as defined by government–to curtail it.

Even the normally feeble European Union tried to salvage the American capitulation by expressing the hope that the resolution might be read a different way. Speaking on behalf of the EU following the resolution’s adoption, French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Mattéi declared that “human rights law does not, and should not, protect religions or belief systems, hence the language on stereotyping only applies to stereotyping of individuals . . . and not of ideologies, religions or abstract values. The EU rejects the concept of defamation of religions.” The EU also distanced itself from the American compromise on the media, declaring that “the notion of a moral and social responsibility of the media” goes “well beyond” existing international law and “the EU cannot subscribe to this concept in such general terms.”

The European Union is the rear guard of inalienable rights? An American president has sold the First Amendment down the river?

I need to draw on Sir Alec Guiness again: Dear God, what have we done?

I often tell my kids (and anyone else who will listen) that while America indeed suffered the stain of slavery on its national character, so did many other countries—in fact, there were very few neutral colonizing nations in the slave trade. Some African states even played both sides, as slaves and slave holders.

But at least we got out of the business in 1863—later than some, earlier than others—and spilled a whole hell of a lot of blood doing so.

So that should be the end of it, right? No more slavery? A shameful relic of the past?

We know better:

n June 2009, the U.S. state department published the Trafficking in Persons Report for 2008, which reviewed 180 countries, ranking them into three tiers according to the extent of their governments’ efforts to eliminate severe forms of human trafficking. Kuwait, along with 17 other countries, was ranked in the third tier, associated with “governments that do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.”

The report states that foreign workers who come to Kuwait, especially from Asian countries, are often “subjected to conditions of forced labor, such as restrictions on movement, unlawful withholding of passports, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical or sexual abuse.” The report also mentions that “some female domestic workers are forced into prostitution after running away from abusive employers or after being deceived with promises of jobs in different sectors.”

As for measures taken by the Kuwaiti authorities to combat these phenomena, the report states that in September 2007, Kuwait undertook “to take future steps [against trafficking], including enacting already drafted legislation that prohibits all forms of trafficking; providing evidence of increased prosecutions, convictions and sentences for trafficking; continuing to develop a fully operational shelter freely accessible to all victims of trafficking; and providing technical training to law enforcement officials, attorneys, and judges on criminally investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases. During the reporting period, however, the Government of Kuwait has not achieved any of these commitments.”

To which horrific state of affais Kuwait responded:

Kuwaiti parliamentary speaker Jassim Al-Khorafi stated, “The U.S. leadership must know that it is not the guardian of the world in these matters. If it wants to appoint itself as the world’s international police force, it must examine all the information before putting it down in official reports…

“Kuwait is not a country of angels, but what saddens me is that America sees itself as a country of angels. Its depiction [of Kuwait] is inaccurate and inappropriate…”

So all those stories we hear are just slander, innuendo, libel, hearsay? Okay.

The 2009 report is here, by the way, and if you’re interested in knowing which are the worst, here ya go:

Saudi Arabia
Iran
Syria
Sudan
Kuwait
Malaysia
Mauritania
North Korea

There’s something in common among the first seven countries on that list, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Let me know if some common trait, culture, belief occurs to you. Whatever it is, if they could just get past it, there’d be a lot more free people walking the earth today.

Because the Dalai Lama, you know, he’s just not that important to human rights:

The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch expressed disappointment at the refusal by United Nations rights chief Navi Pillay to answer whether she will receive the Dalai Lama on his visit to Geneva next week — understood as a negative answer — but welcomed her criticism of China’s “serious systemic violations of human rights” in Tibet, and her call for due process for detainees and access to international observers.

“While the High Commissioner for Human Rights is supposed to be independent and to act solely on principles,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “her refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama-the voice of Tibetan victims and a universal symbol of peace-reflects the sad reality that U.N. institutions and officials operate under the constant influence of power politics, especially when it involves China.”

Louise Arbour, Pillay’s predecessor, admitted to the Washington Post last year that she routinely held back on criticism of China and Russia, because she was “constrained by the reality of the organization’s power centers, including China, Russia and the Group of 77.”

Oh, so it’s a tradition, a policy.

Well, yes it it:

UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights monitoring group, condemned the U.N.’s decision today to reject an international Christian charity as a non-governmental organization (NGO), a form of observer status, after it refused Beijing demands to disclose the addresses of its Chinese members, and “concerns” by Russia, Egypt, Cuba, Pakistan, and Sudan about its “ability to contribute” to the world body.

Despite a U.S. initiative to keep the application open, the Dynamic Christian World Mission Foundation – a group registered in Korea and California that promotes Christianity through educational projects in Russia, Japan and Kyrgyzstan — lost today by a vote of 23 to 22 at the Economic and Social Coucil (ECOSOC), the U.N. organ that oversees NGO participation at the UN Human Rights Council, in the last week of a month-long session in Geneva.

…

Earlier in the year, the Christian group particularly angered China when it cited the lack of religious freedom in that country as the reason it would not divulge names and addresses of its Chinese members.

Those voting to reject the missionary group included Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, India, Indonesia, China, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Pakistan, and Venezuela.

Countries voting to support its application included the U.S., Brazil, Greece, Guatemala, Canada, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Germany, Japan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and Portugal.

Anybody surprised by a single one of the no votes? I note that not a single Muslim country supported the charity, unless you count Netherlands or France.

I reported earlier that the Uighurs are threatening to—oh God, who knows, bite the toes of the Chinese.

And then I laughed.

The Chinese aren’t laughing:

The two boys were seized while kneading dough at a sidewalk bakery.

The livery driver went out to get a drink of water and did not come home.

Tuer Shunjal, a vegetable vendor, was bundled off with four of his neighbors when he made the mistake of peering out from a hallway bathroom during a police sweep of his building. “They threw a shirt over his head and led him away without saying a word,” said his wife, Resuangul.

In the two weeks since ethnic riots tore through Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, killing more than 190 people and injuring more than 1,700, security forces have been combing the city and detaining hundreds of people, many of them Uighur men whom the authorities blame for much of the slaughter.

Whatever Uighurs left walking the street are free to wage jihad against the Chinese if they dare. But I don’t like their chances.

Out of our way, Israel. Iran’s ours:

In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s religious regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told this reporter of his role in suppressing opposition street protests in recent weeks.

He has also detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force, including his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior to their execution.

…

He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.”

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her “husband.”

“I regret that, even though the marriages were legal,” he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were “legal?”

“Because,” he went on, “I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

“I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over,” he said. “I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”

An unsolicited suggestion to one of our better playwrights looking for a compelling subject, now that Rachel Corrie and other anti-Semitic themes have been fully explored: this is pretty compelling stuff, and you don’t have to make any of it up. I know how lazy writers are (being one myself). This is like taking candy from a baby.

I don’t suppose this Basij is anyone to give moral lessons, but even he has had enough with this regime:

He pinned the blame for much of the most ruthless violence employed by the Iranian security apparatus against opposition protesters on what he called “imported security forces” - recruits, as young as 14 and 15, he said, who have been brought from small villages into the bigger cities where the protests have been centered.

“Fourteen and 15-year old boys are given so much power, which I am sorry to say they have abused,” he said. “These kids do anything they please - forcing people to empty out their wallets, taking whatever they want from stores without paying, and touching young women inappropriately. The girls are so frightened that they remain quiet and let them do what they want.”

These youngsters, and other “plainclothes vigilantes,” were committing most of the crimes in the names of the regime, he said.

What do you say, Mr. President? Can we bomb Iran—bomb, bomb—bomb, bomb Iran?

While waiting for our feminist sisters to rear up on their hind legs and express their outrage [crickets], I would like to observe that while some people have their Idi Amins and others their Pol Pots, Islam has w-a-a-a-ay more than its share of monstrous beasts, so far below the minimum accepted quality of humanity as to not merit even being mentioned in the same breath.

Unlike Saddam, who some might say was a monster who only happened to be Muslim, the Iranian clerics—and the Taliban, and Hamass, and more than a few Saudis—are Muslims who monsters precisely because of their Muslimness.

PS: Hot Air:

When - not if - the regime finally falls, we will hear more, yet similar, stories. Let it be a reminder of how evil they truly are.

Of course we should also keep in mind that this is how they treat their own people. What do you think this means they are willing to do to other peoples, especially to Israelis?

Has anybody wondered if maybe the prisoners deserve this treatment?

Iraqi officials outraged by the abuse of prisoners at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison are trying to contain a scandal of their own as allegations continue to surface of mistreatment inside Iraqi jails.

Accounts of Iraqis being beaten with clubs, blindfolded and coerced into signing false confessions are attracting increased attention partly because the United States is getting out of the prison business in Iraq. Since a security agreement took effect Jan. 1, the U.S. has transferred 841 detainees into Iraq’s crowded prison system and more are on the way.

Now, before you get your knickers in a twist (and then drape them over my head, Abu Ghraib style), I’m not advocating abuse. Well, hang on a second:

Nope, definitely not advocating abuse. This stuff should be on a strictly voluntary basis, first come first served.

Let me just observe that Americans are no worse jailers than others, and almost always better. Doesn’t excuse what the “night shift” got up to at Abu G—but these guys are fellow Iraqis, and they can’t stand each other.

Let’s ask them which system they prefer, the current one or Saddam’s, and give them exactly what they want.