OK, so what -was- the plan here?
Aug. 20th, 2008 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bzarcherReading the newstubes this morning there seems to be a huge outrage over what's going on in China with a group of foreign protestors.
Let me see if I got this all right.
1) Students, artists, and "citizen journalists" get tourist visas to China for the olympics.
2) Said tourists stage various protests in China, mostly on the subject of Tibet.
3) Tourists are shocked and appalled when they get arrested for this and demand their release? Particularly the "citizen journos" despite their lack of actual press credentials that might allow this.
4) Internets aflame with RABBLERABBLE over the fact that a totalitarian country cracks down on dissenting voices.
Really, seriously, what did people expect to happen? A pat on the head, some steamed buns, and a "Don't do that again, you fiesty little scamps!" This is a country who has a historical precedent of shooting political dissidents in the back of the head and billing their surviving family for the cost of the bullet. Being arrested should have been EXPECTED and planned for. The possibility of deportation should have been considered.
As it is, I'm sure the US government will probably step in and get them released to US custody (and then on the first plane back to the states, I suspect), but c'mon. Don't act like this is somehow unusual or surprising.
Let me see if I got this all right.
1) Students, artists, and "citizen journalists" get tourist visas to China for the olympics.
2) Said tourists stage various protests in China, mostly on the subject of Tibet.
3) Tourists are shocked and appalled when they get arrested for this and demand their release? Particularly the "citizen journos" despite their lack of actual press credentials that might allow this.
4) Internets aflame with RABBLERABBLE over the fact that a totalitarian country cracks down on dissenting voices.
Really, seriously, what did people expect to happen? A pat on the head, some steamed buns, and a "Don't do that again, you fiesty little scamps!" This is a country who has a historical precedent of shooting political dissidents in the back of the head and billing their surviving family for the cost of the bullet. Being arrested should have been EXPECTED and planned for. The possibility of deportation should have been considered.
As it is, I'm sure the US government will probably step in and get them released to US custody (and then on the first plane back to the states, I suspect), but c'mon. Don't act like this is somehow unusual or surprising.
