Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

Part of Amnesty’s ‘The China Debate’ campaign.

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Amnesty are getting quite good at this video malarkey. Hot on the heels of their fantastic and disturbing waterboarding cinema advert, comes this:

(Hat-tip: Pickled Politics)
Find out more here.

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Remember the regimented atmosphere Brown encountered at a Chinese university last month? Well, it turns out it was more orchestrated than I thought. Via The Times’ Red Box blog, here are the instructions given to the “ordinary people” and journalists at the event:

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The BBC’s Nick Robinson highlights a key difference between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s experience in China. During a question and answer session two years ago, Tony Blair was confronted by

a lively bunch of students in casual clothes pos[ing] proper questions to him.

Fast forward to today and Gordon Brown is being grilled by

rows of rather [...]

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Tonight (or 00.30 tomorrow morning if you’re being pedantic) Iowa begins its caucus, kicking off the Presidential candidate nominating process for both the Democrat and Republican parties. At stake, not just the leadership of the free world, but also, my tenner. This is serious stuff. Whoever wins each primary race then goes forward to a [...]

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Because apparently it’s wear a red T-shirt for Burma day according to this Facebook group. I’m sure it should more properly be called “in support of the Burmese people”, just because otherwise it sounds like we’re supporting the government, but there you go. Wear a red T-shirt today, spread the love and show your solidarity with the [...]

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 Did Yahoo! assist in torture? A court case is currently winding its way through the US courts in which Yahoo! is accused of aiding and abetting torture by Chinese authorities. Yahoo! handed over information to the Chinese which included emails from persons who were later detained and tortured.
Yahoo! have justified their action on the grounds [...]

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Liberal Legend II draws my attention to the case of Yuan Weijing, detained at Beijing Airport and her passport revoked when she attempted to travel to the Philippines to collect a human rights award on behalf of her husband, Prisoner of Conscience, Chen Guangcheng. Had she committed a crime? Well, no, but that matters not [...]

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In a striking blow against free speech, Yahoo and MSN have signed up to China’s euphemistically named “Public Pledge of Self-Regulation and Professional Ethics for China Internet Industry“. This agreement further tightens Chinese control over the domestic blogosphere, with signatory companies pledging to “encourage” real-name registration, and to “safeguard state and public interests” (i.e. anything [...]

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