China Blocks News Websites In Protest of Nobel 213
DaveNJ1987 writes "The Chinese Government has blocked the websites of the BBC, CNN and Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK, less than 24 hours before dissident Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo is due to be awarded the Nobel peace prize. China has been vocally critical of the plans to award the jailed writer the prize and has even gone as far as setting up its own 'Confucius peace prize' to rival the awards being held in Oslo tomorrow."
Re:This Is Not News (Score:5, Informative)
Well, if you knew more details you'd know that this story involves them also "persuading" at least 18 other countries not to attend the presentation, and not letting the man's relatives collect the prize for him etc. It's more than just them censoring things in their own country this time. This is just an update on that story.
It would be funny if it wasn't affecting so many peoples' lives. At least our own governments try to make their lies plausible and their political maneuvers relatively subtle.
Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China (Score:5, Informative)
Let's put it that way, a LOT of things point towards this being a plot rather than him being a scumbag.
1. The accusations happen only a few days after his organization starts publishing secret documents that quite a few countries (or rather, the governments of a few countries) would love to see disappear.
2. The accusations are from a woman affiliated with the CIA.
3. She first bragged about her night with Assange on her twitter page, then desperately tried to erase it when she suddenly decided it was rape.
4. Swedish authorities did not want to talk with him while he was still in Sweden, even though he offered repeatedly to come willingly on his own for questioning.
5. Suddenly when he left Sweden, an international arrest warrant was issued, nearly instantly. This must have been the fastest IAW in history over a kinda-sorta-serious allegation of maybe-rape. For varying degrees of rape, since I know no country aside of Sweden where fucking without a condom can be considered rape. Sidenote: Usually, if you try to get an IAW for something that is not a crime in at least most of the countries involved, don't bother trying. You won't get one. No chance, no way.
The whole "rape" charge hinges on two feminists who fucked with Assange, not knowing that the other one fucked him too, then both got pissed when they found out that he fucked both of them and retaliated by calling it rape. Usually, as soon as a state attorney gets wind of such a "two dumped bitches" gambit, he drops the case faster than Assange dropped the bitches. Because he knows that any lawyer worth his salt will whack him left and right if he dares to pull something like this to court. But suddenly this is worth getting an international arrest warrant.
In case someone here does not know the hassle normally involved in getting an IAW: It took me and our state law enforcement agency two weeks and a LOT of convincing paperwork to get a IAW for a person who we could PROVE was involved in fraud, extortion and blackmail, with a damage exceeding a million Euros. And here an IAW is suddenly pulled out of someone's ass for a kinda-sorta allegation of rape.
Sorry, but believing that this is "real" gets harder by the nanosecond.