Leading human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize-nominee Harry Wu, who has documented many of China’s human rights abuses and crimes, said the United States cannot learn anything from the Communist Chinese educational system.
“The United States cannot learn anything from China, okay?” he said. “But we [the Chinese] want to go there to study the systems and study the culture and find out the best way for America to handle the China case.”
The State Department’s Human Rights Report on China, dated Feb. 25, 2009, states that the Chinese government puts political dissidents into reeducation through labor camps.
“The government reportedly continued to limit access to mosques, detain citizens for possession of unauthorized religious texts, imprison citizens for religious activities determined to be ‘extremist,’ pressure Muslims who were fasting to eat during Ramadan, and confiscate Muslims' passports to strengthen control over Muslim pilgrimages,” the report reads.
“Following violent clashes in western Xinjiang during the Olympic Games, XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) authorities imposed widespread detentions, restricted movement within the XUAR, and established curfews in some cities,” reads the report.
“XUAR party secretary Wang Lequan declared in September that the XUAR government would carry out ‘preemptive attacks,’ implement ‘antiseparatist reeducation’ across the region, and increase policing of religious groups.”
Harry Wu said you cannot compare China’s way of governing with that of the United States.
“The Communist Party is talking about dictatorship; talking about totalitarian. How to handle the dissidents – that is Laogai [re-education] camps,” said Wu.
“You cannot [function in China] without it. Laogai and freedom and democracy are incompatible. That is very clear,” he said.
The Laogai Research Foundation estimates there are at least 1,000 laogai prisons functioning in Communist China today, holding more than 6 million prisoners. The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press) estimates that at least 65 million people have been killed or died as a result of China’s Communist policies.
Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.