Asia-Pacific News
Number of Chinese political prisoners in 2007 "highest since 1999"
Mar 17, 2008, 16:17 GMT
Beijing - The number of Chinese political prisoners rose in 2007 to its highest level in eight years, according to a report published Monday by the US-based Dui Hua Foundation.
According to report, arrests in China for 'endangering state security' rose from 561 in 2006 to 742 in 2007.
In the Chinese legal system, this category of crime (which in 1997 replaced 'counterrevolution') includes subversion, espionage, and so- called 'splittism' and the incitement thereof. The foundation said these laws are aimed at squelching dissent.
'These numbers remind us that in spite o all of the information that comes out of China about the government's crackdown on politcal dissent, for the most part the arrests are taking place out of the public view,' said Joshua Rosenzweig, manager of research and programmes at the Dui Hua Foundation.
'Even after all of our research, it turns out we still only know the names of two or three per cent of those being arrested,' he added.
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Older Talkback
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I guess that depends on your view as to whether or not the detainees in Gitmo are in fact political prisoners or if they are terrorists bent on the destruction of the United States, its citizens and interests both foreign and domestic.
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JonNov 18th, 2008 - 16:44:26
Now if we could just get the US to divulge how many political prisoners are being held by the US, that would be really nice. Clearly, US citizens being held as political prisoners number in the hundreds, but that is just the beginning. With an estimated 70 or so 'secret' prisons around the world, it is very unclear how many non-US citizens are being illegally detained. Human rights groups know of at least 39 prisoners that have disappeared while in US custody. Gitmo alone has held at least 775 detainees, which is more than all the political prisoners in China. As the world's greatest democracy, I find it disturbing that we probably hold more political prisoners than a communist country with four times our population.
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