These are just some of the reasons why I have been promoting consumer social responsibility (aka boycotting exhibits like Bodies, limiting the purchase of China made products, and by informing others) in the plight for human rights so that all citizens of the world may live... think ... believe... and speak freely. I support this with all my being.
1. Followers of Falun Gong (Which is a system of beliefs that work toward the "cultivation of virtue and character", "moral standards for different levels", and "salvation of all sentient beings.") are tortured and imprisoned daily for their beliefs. According to the UN over 65% of all torture cases and over 50% of all Labor Camps in China are comprised of Falun Gong Followers. This truly is a philosophy built on peace and the betterment of man through each persons own individual development.
2. China has no voluntary organ donation system. The majority of organs harvested and transplanted are done on the black market to people from all over the world who are able to afford them at about 16 million dollars a pop. Where do these organs come from? Although the exact figure is still unknown many of the people who have conducted these transplants have admitted that the organs were harvested from LIVE religious and political(people who have spoken out against communism)prisoners. In 1996 the Chinese Government reported that it had participated in over 20,000 transplant of kidneys alone. UN Report: http://falunhr.org/reports/UN2007-org/Torture-UN-07.pdf
3. Slavery is a reality in China. Men Women and Most often very small children are stolen from the streets, removed from their daily lives they are forced to live in bare hovels, they are tortured, raped, maimed, and fed bread and water, and worked from dawn into the night daily on tasks of hard manual labor in agriculture and mines. To their families most will never be heard from again.
4. According to CNN there are 1,100 known forced-labor camps in China. They are "are driven by hard-line ideology, Communist Party directives and the whims of local cadres. It is designed as a repressive mechanism to control and, in effect, eliminate anyone whose political, religious or societal views differ from those of the Communist Party."
5. All of this before we discus the unregulated and environmentally unfriendly acts that pump pollution above china in unprecedented percentages that corrupting the entire worlds air supply or the rampant sex and child sex trade that employs children as young 4 years old (and maybe younger) and encourages pedophiles from around the world to vacation there or the infanticide & gendercide that has created a gender gap that in some regions has meant a population of 70% males and 30% females. The mutilation of females. The sheer lack of value placed on human life. The 3000 Christians that have been put to death in the last 7 years for speaking out. Or that there is no Freedom of speech, and the internal media is used to propagate propaganda and a tool for oppression of ideas. After an even longer list of Chinese issues we come to the recalls which placed children around the world at risk for nothing more than pennies more in profit.
As for the Olympics I have mixed emotions. In general I don't support the Olympics because of their fundamental ambivalence to human suffering around the world. In one hand I understand that increased revenue can assist impoverished countries But what is good for tourism is Never good for long term sustainability and habitation of developing or oppressed countries. Tourism to oppressed countries only heightens the power of the economically and socially empowered people of the ruling class. In instances like the Sex Trade and Child Sex Trade (popular economic stimuli in developing tourist countries such as Mexico, Africa, the Middle East and Asia) aside from social and emotional ramifications they counter act economic development by denying children the necessary education and opportunities needed to economically mobilize themselves and their families long term. Instead these children become fodder for sexual deviancy until their youth has been spent and their futures blackened and decided. Even in countries were the child sex trade does not operate (openly) children are kept from school in order to make and sell trinkets on streets and in open markets. These sought souvenirs not only reflect the local culture but the culture of oppression & while tourists can not have enough of these goods to showcase their travels they have little heart or consideration for what they have really bought into.
I fear that as the times get closer to the Olympics the Chinese government will become more desperate to silence the heroic voices that have begun to rise above the oppression. During the last Olympics over 300,000 dogs and cats were put to death in order to make the city appear cleaner and more welcoming to outsiders - That was in Athens a country that does not already have such problems as China. For a country already plagued by torture and oppression what drastic measures might the Chinese government take in an attempt to maintain their "image"? That Said, I cannot help but hope that having a spot light on China will if not, empower her people, will showcase the social and inhumane injustices before the world and perhaps with a few billion behind them China may become free. Join the Fight Speak on behalf of those who cannot, limit your purchase of China made goods and make the economic statement that we will not conduct business or be bedfellows with those who commit atrocities against man kind.
An inside look into China:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgGCQ0nVcyU
