The oppressive China

In the past years, the Republic of China has turned into a sort of international attraction, not only for being the country with the highest number of inhabitants on Earth or because of its great walls and pandas, but for representing a gigantic market whose entrance window is narrowing for not developed countries. This millenary nation of the far East probably hosts “the biggest
dictatorship," with a hybrid political system, hold by a communism different from the couple of remaining Marxist states in the planet.

In 2011 by the influence of the Arab Spring, tens of chinese citizens stepped out of their places asking for a change in the political regime. However, manifestations were shortly finished due to the sistematic repression imposed by Beijing to public manifestations and to the ferreous control over means of communication, either conventional or digital ones.

China is a country where free press does not exist. Religions are persecuted by the regime, which even owns a catholic church “parallel” to the official institution set by the Vatican. The tibetan population as well as the uighur are brutally repressed and persecuted in order to avoid any type of critique against the government. Internet is limited and mightily controlled by authorities who constantly remove comments against the dictatorship.

For the chinese communism, press notes are still “crimes” related to the “divisiveness of the nation” or the “political subversion." Any person who dares to commit crime against the state is severely sentenced to prison, torture and even death. The death penalty is still in force and applied to various “crimes."

It might seem ridiculous but the threat to the communist regime does not come from the opposition, but from its own lines.

Weeks ago the Chinese Communist Party, the only one legal since several decades ago, had performed a depuration of its members suspending and consequently substituting some of its main leaders that could have played an important role in needed reforms inside the political party.

The drastic changes executed are drawing attention in a period of time when strong internal pressures demand the renewal, although maintaining the comunist tradition, of not only authorities of the party, but also of some political outlines.

China is still growing economically and nowadays plays a protagonic role inside the international community. It holds multimillion-dollar contracts in investments in several countries of the world and pursues to implement a long term politics for the nation to sustain itself successfully in the next decades. It also has the largest and most powerful army on planet Earth.

The fact that the free market could not eradicate yet the prevailing authoritarism and the static politics regarding human rights, turns out to be a paradox. The economic system should at least, give a break to the millions of chinese people who could never enjoy freedom entirely inside their own country.

Political reforms in China will come by the hand of “comunists themselves," because it is very unlikely that some public manifestation would bring any positive result for the validation of individuals rights. In the past months the number of tibetan monks who immolated themselves in order to draw attention over the invasion they are going through since more than half a century ago, has raised.

The process of the chinese economic progress will demand more freedom earlier than later, and will allow repressed ones to perform a handful of minimum but revolutionary changes. The power that Beijing will keep exercising in the world will also constitute a determining reason for the international community to demand reforms. Necessary and urgent reforms that cannot be kept away any longer.

Syria and its Spring Dream

By mid march 2011, through social networks, specially Facebook, a meeting in Damascus was convened which would later become a revolution. “A Syria without tyranny, emergency laws or exception courts,” was the name of the group in different websites trying to follow Egyptians, Tunisians and Libyans steps, who got involved in riots in their corresponding countries. Days later, tens of thousand of Syrians from the entire national territory, manifested themselves against the dictatorship of Bachar al Asad.

The authoritarian government accused opponents of creating an “armed rebellion of Salafist groups” with only religious or terrorist purposes. With great rising revolutions also started the different massacres executed by the regime and massive arrests, besides torture cases.

The international community, concerned about the situation in Libya or Egypt, asked the Syrian dictatorship to give an end to repressions, besides setting certain sanctions to the presidential circle. Last year in August, the president Barack Obama and some of his European colleagues, demanded al Asad´s resignation in order to solve the problem. The petition was not taken into consideration and repression sharpened terribly.

Despite efforts for ending riots pacifically, neither the Arab League nor the United Nations could set down a possible solution, given the constant obstacles imposed by Syria allies, China and Russia, which hold million dollar contracts with Syria.

Only one year after riots took place, a deadline for the cessation of violence could be established. Even though the deadline was met on April 12, the Syrian dictatorship kept attacking rebels and defenseless opponents. Al Asad broke the agreement and bombarded Homs again, an emblematic city for the resistance.

The consequences of more than a year of internal fight are alarming. According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, the riots caused at least 10,000 deaths in 13 months of fighting; the arrest of 80,000 opponents, thousands of them tortured; 200,000 refugees were displaced from the national territory and 55,000 found refuge in Turkey, Irak, Lebanon and Jordan.

Meanwhile, the Syrian dictatorship keeps oppressing and repressing its own citizens, rising the number of deads caused by the army. The conflict is growing older because multilateral organizations do not wish something similar to what happened in Libya by the intervention of the NATO, to happen again. Specially because of the strong opposition of Beijing and Moscow.

Everything that started by inspiration from the Arab riots in Syria is in risk because of the sanguinary action of the dictatorial government and the international bureaucracy of organizations supposedly in charge of ensuring the fulfillment of human rights. Syrians deserve a better future, without the restrictions of another dictatorship or the sick slavery of Islamism, another possible threat at the door.

The Arab Spring is not over yet, and consequences resulting from the postponement of fundamental freedom rights warn about what happens when individuals are subjected to a horror regime for a long time.

Auschwitz in the 21st century

A huge regional and global concern exists because of the launch of a North Korean satellite

which, according to the communist regime of Pyongyang, has scientific purposes. However, for

Tokio, Seoul and Washington, in reality it represents a cover proof of a ballistic missile that could

threaten countries of the region. The launch will take place this week and Japan, together with

the USA, pretend to intercept the satellite if it shows any sign of threat.

Unfortunately, besides the international danger that causes the North Korean dictatorship,

there are also quite severe internal problems imparing thousands of citizens. Days ago, human

rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Open North Korea, The Simon Wiesenthal

Center and Conectas, among others, demanded the United Nations to open an investigation

and subsequently close the concentration camps in North Korea, where around 200,000 people,

including tens of children, live under subhuman conditions.

According to denunciators, prisioners work a minimum of 12 hours a day under unhealthy

conditions, and are paid with a ration of 20 grains of rice, daily. The majority of enslaved

North Koreans are also tortured and violated sexually. There are even cases of extrajudicial

executions.

For the International Federation of Human Rights, “the extreme conditions in concentration

camps are aggravated by diseases such as tuberculosis or pneumonia, which together,

constitute the cause of death of approximately 20 to 25% of prisoners.”

It is estimated that at least 400,000 people died in the past years in different concentration

camps from the asiatic country.

“It is such a small number that prisoners are obligued to look for not digested grains in cow feces in order to survive,” mentioned the organizations press release based on a prisoner testimony who managed to escape from one of the prisons.

North Korea is the most airtight country of the world, where any attempt of dissidence is

harshly managed with detentions and executions. Thousands of oppositors are paying penalties in concentration camps.Even though North Korea has received tens of accusations from several world organizations, the dictatorial communist goverment of this republic, is still member of multilateral associations without existing a true, harsh pression over this country to give an end to the totalitarian regime.

The UN has failed in its attempt of influencing North Korea towards a democratic politics, or in

pursuing any type of political improvement.

It becomes absurd to suppose that in 2012, when life is extremely science-and-technology

dependant, there are still nazi-like concentration camps. Even now, differences among

Auschwitz, easily forgotten sovietic gulags and great detention centers in North Korea, are not

that big. The totalitarian regimes, despite diverging ideologically, work in the same way in order

to abolish different opinions, options or philosophies.

Until now, there is no short term solution available for North Koreans given the constant

imposition of the dictatorship in every single corner of the country, which intimidates not only

to its inhabitants but also to the international community. The UN, which can intervene saving

millions of lives, has not decided yet which could be the best way of decreasing poverty and

opression imposed in North Korea.

Meanwhile, 200,000 people remind us that concentration camps are still active despite existing

human rights and populist speeches of world leaders.