

The forgotten Americans who ended in the gulag - peakok
http://www.nysun.com/arts/banished-the-forsaken-by-tim-tzouliadis/82839/

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greyman
Sad stories. It's interesting, that similarly how Western media painted a
distorted picture of Soviet communist regime, they now paint a distorted
picture of China communist regime. The same deception tactics still works, the
existence of forced labors camps (gulags) is very rarely mentioned, horrible
human rights abuses go unreported in mainstream media, etc.

When will mankind learn their lessons?

~~~
tptacek
Is your argument that conditions in China are comparable to those in Stalinist
Russia, and, if so, can you support that argument with evidence?

~~~
wtrk
The Soviet regime ran a large system of forced labor camps. China currently
runs a large system of forced labor camps. Horrible human rights violations
occurred under the Soviet system and are currently occurring in China.

Here's a recent, quite representative, example of the sort of thing that can
happen to someone in China:

"Chinese teacher sent to labour camp for earthquake photos"
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/30/chinaearthquake....](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/30/chinaearthquake.china?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront)

Excerpt:

    
    
      A Chinese teacher has been sent to a labour camp over his   
      internet photographs of schools that collapsed in the 
      Sichuan earthquake, a rights group said today.
    
      Liu Shaokun was ordered to serve a year of "re-education   
      through labour", according to Human Rights in China. The 
      system does not require a formal charge or criminal trial 
      and there is no appeal.

~~~
cglee
This quote doesn't capture the main reason for his jailing. When looking at
superficial reasons, it seems unrelated (taking a photo, reading a book,
eating ice cream, joining a religion, etc), but the root reason is "causing
social unrest". He was taking pictures to expose possible government
corruption in the building of the school. This would have caused people to
protest and blame the local government for the students' deaths.

Likewise with Falun Gong. Suppressing religion isn't the end goal. It's the
fear of someone having influence over a large number of people, and thereby
possibly causing social unrest.

Don't read this as a defense of the Chinese government. I'm just trying to
clarify the quote to prevent the "how can they jail someone for THAT?"
response.

------
ola
I guess "One Day in the Life of John Smith" didn't sound as interesting.

