
China is working to silence critics of its prisonlike re-education camps - tomohawk
https://world.wng.org/2019/04/striking_the_messenger
======
est
how is this news? China has a sophisticated government-social process to
silence everything within minutes.

Media surpression was one of the ruling party's long term commitments.

~~~
tomohawk
How is it not news?

The Chinese Communist Party, through actions such as this, shows it has no
regard for human rights and will probably stop at nothing to get its way.

~~~
philwelch
The particulars of these incidents are news. What isn't news is the fact that
totalitarian regimes have no regard for human rights. That fact is no more
novel or surprising than the fact that wolves prey on other animals--though if
wolves had the same power and influence as the Chinese government, maybe we'd
forget about that, too.

------
Grue3
>"prisonlike re-education camps"

Why the euphemism? Just call them concentration camps for ethnic minorities,
which is what they are.

------
devoply
It's funny how much Muslims help trample the human rights of other Muslims.
Whether it's the Saudis or Iranians or the Yemenis... or the Central Asians.
In the West we have achieved the fabled brotherhood of the Ummah through
humanism where as in most Muslim countries are out for other Muslims' blood
often using Islam as a justification.

~~~
GordonS
Sorry, but I'm struggling to understand what this means, or how it relates to
the article?

~~~
devoply
Kazakhstan a Muslim-majority country is helping China suppress the human
rights of Muslim minorities.

------
ETHisso2017
I have difficulty believing the objectivity of a magazine whose editors have
such a clear religious bias (and pushed compassionate conservatism, to boot).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_(magazine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_\(magazine\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Olasky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Olasky)

~~~
philwelch
Nobody is objective and everyone is biased. Once you accept that, you can
start to price that in somewhat. If anything, it’s counter-biased for
evangelical Protestants to have strong concerns for the welfare of Muslim
Uyghurs.

~~~
sverige
It is perfectly understandable for christians to be concerned about the
welfare of all people.

~~~
philwelch
Sure, but if these particular Christians are driven by the "bias" of being
concerned about the welfare of all people...that's not really a bias anymore,
is it?

------
est31
Where is the nerdy connection? The other anti-China thread on the front page
at least is about social media [1] but this one has no connection to tech at
all or science or whatever. It's purely political, and the particular issue of
religious minorities suppression in Xinjiang has already been on hacker news
in form of an excellent NYT a piece a few weeks back [2].

The ASML story from yesterday was beautifully on-topic for example [3].

I get it, the Chinese government is authoritarian and mean and much worse at
that than the US government was in the last 30 years. But why repeat this
message over and over?

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19712564](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19712564)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19570594](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19570594)

[3]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19703909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19703909)

~~~
dboat
There always seems to be a pro-China backlash in the comments of HN articles
critical of China. I'm slowly coming around to the idea that this looks like
an organized effort to control the narrative. What gets me most is the
universal weakness of the points made in the pro-China posts. You would not
have had to think very long to realize this is a reasonable submission for
this site, but here you are anyway.

It wouldn't stand out so much on reddit but here this stuff really sticks out
like a sore thumb.

Everyone with an interest in technology and freedom would be wise to pay
attention to what is going on in China right now. With the opportunities
presented by our rapidly changing technology, they are pioneering new and
disturbing means of oppression that should be of great concern to anyone
accustomed to a free society.

I'm not assuming bad faith on your part, but I am asserting flatly that your
post is indistinguishable from it. If you are not a part of a coordinated
effort to minimize discussion of such things than I suggest you try harder to
understand why other people care about them.

~~~
est31
> There always seems to be a pro-China backlash

Please, read my comment. I'm not pro-Chinese oppression. I hope I made it very
clear that the ASML story was on topic and that it was very good to cover it,
etc. This thinking of "either you are my friend and agree 100% with me or you
are my enemy" is dangerous and I recommend you try to change the general
thought pattern. You'll be a better person afterwards. There is nuance in the
world!

> Everyone with an interest in technology and freedom would be wise to pay
> attention to what is going on in China right now.

I definitely do pay attention but the anti-China posts are literally
everywhere by now. Every one of my news sources is constantly running anti-
China pieces. As I've pointed out there is already a anti-China story on the
frontpage. Isn't one enough? There have been anti-China pieces on this page
constantly. Is hn the Chinese revolution headquarters?

Your idea of a coordinated effort to push an agenda might not be wrong, after
all Russia has been doing this so why not China, but note that your argument
works in the other direction as well: maybe the reason for all of these anti-
Chinese news stories is because of the US-Chinese trade war. It's well known
that the USA doesn't care much about human rights in countries that do what
the USA wants. Instead, the big "let's gift them freedom" idea mainly comes up
when they happen to be unaligned with Washington foreign policy. The US mass
media has, let's put it mildly, always been patriotic and supported that
pattern with suiting news stories. This old alliance works greatly, even
despite the war between Trump and the media. This particular story is just
part of that pattern. Just wait, by when US-Chinese relations improve, these
stories will disappear from the frontpage and other news outlets again.

Again, I fully agree that the Chinese government is a big threat to freedom
and democracy. I've said so in multiple comments on this page.

~~~
dboat
> As I've pointed out there is already a anti-China story on the frontpage.
> Isn't one enough?

Two different posts about unrelated subjects concerning China is one too many
to you? Do you think there is a quota or something? We share and upvote things
we find interesting. If there were ten posts on the front page covering ten
different anti-Chinese-government subjects that would still in no way support
your claim that these posts are the result of a US trade war conspiracy. It
speaks more to the breadth of startling activities being performed by the
Chinese government than anything else.

I also find it interesting that you call discussion of oppressive actions
undertaken by the Chinese -government- to be "anti-China." A subtle but
meaningful distinction. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt but you
are making it difficult.

