Comment by pimmen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pimmen | Hacker News Reader

I live on the other side of the world, but this still strikes a deep chord with me.

I'm Swedish, born and raised in Gothenburg. After the Umbrella protests in 2014 five people connected to the Causeway Bay Books store in Hong Kong disappeared. One of them is a naturalized Swedish citizen, his daughter was raised in my home town. He is now imprisoned and can't communicate with his daughter, or with the Swedish authorities. Angela Gui, his daughter, is continuing on the struggle for his release to the extent she can, being only 21 when her father disappeared.

All these arguments about "leave China be" or "this isn't the West's problem" just don't make any sense to me. This is a small world, whether we like it or not, and letting authoritarian stuff like this extradition treaty to a dictatorship slide is condoning it and before you know it your citizenship, constitutional rights and passport which you thought would keep you safe doesn't work anymore and you get snatched from a street for something you've said. Your family can only cry themselves to sleep over it from the feeling of powerlessness.

We don't have to go into hypotheticals about what will happen if China gets more power to persecute people of Hong Kong. In Sweden, we already know what they've done with the limited power they hold now.

We, people from Hong Kong, appreciate your view a lot.

Your view is particularly relevant to the current protest on anti-extraditions law: the focus is on what if more people will be transferred to China when CCP does not like what you have done outside of China.

Without the extraditions law, CCP has to go into great length to abduct others into China--for the case of the five missing book publishers (including a Swedish national) [1] who did not violate any law in Hong Kong or elsewhere (ignoring some made-up non-sense of drink-drive accidents), likely CCP used secret agents reaching as far as Thailand, because there were no travel documents necessary to have the five people crossing the border through legal channels.

But once the extraditions law is passed, China can use Hong Kong to bring people into China, regardless of their nationality, and foreigners merely transiting in Hong Kong could be arrested and then extradited into China.

The results weren't pretty. The Swedish national, Gui Minhai, in this case were forced to made a "confession" on CCTV for his "crime", in addition to losing his freedom [1].

China has shown repeatedly that they could retaliate by charging foreigners. What follows the Huawei incident is a recent example.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...

> This is a small world, whether we like it or not, and letting authoritarian stuff like this extradition treaty to a dictatorship slide

A while ago a plane arrived in Fiji half-filled with Chinese police officers. They arrested 77 supposedly Chinese nationals, put them on the plane, and took them back to China. This was all extra-judicial. None of the 77 were arrested, charged, or convicted by the Fijian justice system. It's unknown who the 77 are, but the Chinese claim they were involved in an online fraud ring.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-08/chinese-suspects-depo...

As a Chinese I think the Chinese police officers are doing a great job.

They probably are following orders really well, it's the judicial and legislative system using the police that are almost not even trying to uphold the human rights conventions. You know, the UN ones, which China claims they support, since China's a permanent member of the security council and all.

You have earned 1 social credit point.

I really like people when they comment without doing research and just feed their hatred. The event in Fiji IS about online scammers, and thousands of people in China have suffered from these scams. These scammers are, unfortunately, mostly organized by Taiwanese because conveniently we use the same language. They are usually released in days when sent back to Taiwan. Fortunately Chinese police office does a good job, and work with local government to crack down these activities. These criminals reside in African countries and South east countries because the law enforcement there is technologically limited. I understand people hate Chinese government (you are not a happy person anyway), but using wrong evidence to back up your claim is just appalling.

If you are looking for political dissenters, they are mostly in Europe, Canada, and sometimes U.S. Never in third-world countries.

CCP does have a lot of room to improve in protecting human rights. But to be fair, for the matter of national security, every country takes the extreme measure. Look at the Assange case. Neither Swedish nor US government makes any sense to me.

Assange will get a fair trial, does the PRC know what a fair trial is?

“Fair” is a big word. It will likely not be fully public, for a start.

China is undoubtedly the worst offender, when it comes to the right to a fair trial; but let’s not pretend “our” countries cannot stack the deck when they feel it’s necessary.

Whenever people bring up human rights abuses in China, that China is a totalitarian country, there are always people bring up that democracy isn't that much better, it's chaotic, there are special interests, there are ways to abuse human rights in a democracy too etc.

Here's my take: people living in democratic societies have this powerful weapon called free and fair election. Furthermore, independent judiciary and the rule of law. All of their constitutions have some kind of bill of rights built in, and the governments, by and large dare not cross the legal boundaries or it's almost certain that there will be consequences. If these checks and balances are not enough due to prosecutors stacking their deck with heavily financed teams of lawyers, enacting or reviving controversial laws, the civil societies are fully able to demand change, and action it during elections. While we should not pretend that democracies are perfect, let's also not pretend they are totally useless. Change can happen quickly if enough people want it to. On the hand, China after Tiananmen, has expanded its state power so much, its control of information so effective, its surveillance system so encompassing, and its civil resistance so shattered, its policies has bribed so many people, it's almost impossible to effect any substantial change without a total collapse of the regime.

Saying or implying democracies are just as bad as totalitarian regimes like the PRC risks spreading hopelessness that the people in democratic countries cannot change things. So I hope the next time people bring up this comparison, have some proportion, some perspectives in mind, and think about what they can do to better their governments, instead of just conveniently dismissing the value of democracies.

I completely agree. My aim was simply to point out that Assange's case is so bad, that one really shouldn't use it as a point of superiority of this or that system.

You must be kidding. Trump's going to war on trumped up evidence; you think a single guy is going to get a hearing?

That said, PRC is a completely different ballgame. What I wouldn't give to see all of China revolt like they are doing in HK.

Assange is currently being tortured.

You call that a fair trial?

The fact that some other country also did this terrible thing doesn't make doing it less terrible.

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