Human Rights in Russia and China

            The similarities between Russia and China are few and far between normally however, unfortunately, their respective track records on human rights and freedom of the press are disturbingly, if not horrifically, similar.  Whether it is in dealing with independent journalists, religious practitioners, opposition groups, or even their own people the establishment of these two countries have no problem silencing those who do not do as they are told in any way the powers that be deem necessary.

            Now, the prerequisite for democracy is having more than one person or party competing for office.  Woefully, both China and Russia fall short of this prerequisite in differing ways.  In China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) is the only party and anybody who works in government or wants to have any sort of standard of living must be a member.  The President of China is also the General Secretary of the CPC making these positions nearly synonymous.  In Russia, the power is not concentrated with one party, but instead, at this current time, in one person and that person is now (again) President Vladimir Putin.  Taking over after the resignation of Boris Yeltsin in 1999 he was elected in his own name in 2000 and served his constitutional limit of two consecutive four year terms.  After this, his Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was elected and served one term during which Putin served as his prime minister and it was widely known that Putin was still the one making the decisions.  Putin was again elected in 2012 however the constitution had been amended in 2008 by President Medvedev so that, among other things, the presidential term is now six years.  If Putin is reelected to a fourth term and serves out that term he will have been president for a total of 20 years.  No other person has served longer as the head of state in Russia or the USSR with one notably glaring exception – that of Iosif Dzhugashvili, or, as he is more commonly known as, General Secretary Josef Stalin.  To cement his power it is widely believed that Putin had the 2012 presidential elections rigged.  Tonino Picula, who is the Special Coordinator to lead the short-term Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observer mission, stated that “There were serious problems from the very start of this election.  The point of elections is that the outcome should be uncertain.  This was not the case in Russia.  There was no real competition and abuse of government resources ensured that the ultimate winner of the election was never in doubt.”  Now as you can imagine, with such control, the power establishment does not tolerate dissent and thousands of people have been arrested in each country because of their dissent, whether it actually occurred, is just perceived, or because it might occur.  Russia has just recently been doing this, arresting many who participated in the May 6^th protests of Putin’s reelection.

            Now that we’ve seen how a small group of people have near absolute control over their individual countries let’s look at what this has done to certain institutions in these countries. 

First, we’ll take a look at how religions are treated in each country.  Historically, Russia has not been friendly toward religion, but this was mainly due to the policies of the USSR and things have only incrementally gotten better since then in that they aren’t being sent to the gulags.  Orthodox Christianity has a special place in Russian society and is nearly the state religion with three quarters of the population identifying as orthodox and President Putin has courted them extensively and in return the leader of the Orthodox church actually endorsed Putin in his campaign for a third term.  However, not only are there laws in Russia regulating churches but they make it extremely difficult for a church to start and if they do pass those hurdles then some are subjected to harassment by the police.  There have been countless documented cases of Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Falun Gong groups, and Scientology groups being harassed by the police and prosecutors who sometimes start an investigation with the sole purpose of finding a reason to shut them down.

            In China, all religious organizations are controlled by the government and very few religions are able to operate outside of that.  The only exception might be the Tibetan monks but they have also been subjected to harsh treatment and indiscriminate arrests and prosecutions.  Take, for example, that the only allowed group for Catholics in China is controlled by the government and the government actually picks the bishops.  Only recently did the Vatican start to show some steps toward actually recognizing these bishops and technically any bishop ordained by the government and not by the church is performing a schismatic act and is instantly excommunicated.  China has also enacted a law that makes it illegal for the next Dalai Lama to be from anywhere but China and basically states that they will choose the next Dalai Lama after the current one dies.  They have already taken steps to make sure this happens.  After the Dalai Lama recognized a six year old boy as the 11^th Panchen Lama the Chinese government kidnapped the child and chose a different child who happened to be the child of two CCP members and appointed him as the 11^th Panchen Lama.  The first child remains missing.

            Second, let’s look at the plight of the independent journalists in these countries starting, once again, with Russia.  Russia has progressed some from its former days but unfortunately not much, all of the major news channels are owned in whole or in part by the government and they use it to their own means.  The government also controls a large proportion of the print media but a few independent publications are able to operate but journalist themselves remain at risk.  According to Reporters Without Borders, 26 journalists have been murdered because of their work in Russia since 2000.  This is in addition to countless vicious beatings and threats to journalists.

            In China, this situation is worse.  All news channels are subject to strict censorship and they never go off script.  All media outlets must get a license from the government to operate and these licenses can be taken away at any time, all journalists must also have a press pass issued by the government and must pass yearly political tests in order to keep it.  There are a few publications that are able to investigate stories but they must be careful of where they lay blame lest they lose their license or find themselves arrested or harassed.  Numerous journalists and bloggers have been imprisoned in China, some being sentenced to long prison terms and/or hard labor.  The internet is extremely censored but the proliferation of micro blogs (similar to Twitter, but Twitter is banned in China) has made it much more difficult for the government to suppress all dissent and many people report about what is going on that the official press cannot report on before government censors are able to stop it.  In Reporters Without Border’s yearly rankings China ranks 174^th out of a total of 179 – even behind the failed state of Somalia, but still only three above North Korea.

            While this essay is long by my standards, you could fill the library of congress documenting and writing about the human rights abuses in these two countries.  This is only a small taste of what goes on in these countries, and we may never know the full extent of the abuses because they are hidden from public view and any journalists who risks reporting on them also risks being maimed, beaten, or even killed.  While Russia ranks better than China on most things it does not make their crimes any less wrong.  Both countries are intolerant of dissent, criticism, and most of the time, religion.  While these abuses may have gotten worse over the short term there is reason to believe that as more people come online in China and Russia there will slowly be more and more people who find out what their country is doing to their neighbors and will act against it in some fashion or another, after all Freedom House writes in their report that “23 pro-reform CCP elders submitted an open letter to the National People’s Congress…[which] called for an end to media control and a full realization of the press freedom guarantees of the Chinese constitution.”  Change will come to these countries but it will be necessary for journalists to continue risking their lives to report on what is actually happening.

Russia

Russia

            Being the enormous country that it is, many things happen in Russia everyday – more than can be covered in one paper, by one person.  With that said, we will focus on two recent events that have continued to garner international attention.  The first event, or rather a series of events, we will cover is the continuing protests against President Vladimir Putin and calls for fair elections, then we will cover the story with perhaps more international implications and attention, Russia’s support and continuing arms deals with Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government.

            Originally beginning as a response to the alleged fixing of 2011 legislative elections, protests have continued through-out the country but mainly in the capital, Moscow.  At their beginning they caught nearly everybody off guard because of their size and the distribution of opinion within the protests themselves.  Normally many of the groups that are participating would be at odds with one another, some even with seemingly irreconcilably differences but now they are all united by one general outline of demands – the annulment of the election results (now including the presidential election results), freedom for all political prisoners, the registration of opposition parties, and, above all else, free and fair elections which would be the start of their ultimate goal of having a democratic Russia.  Implied in the calls for an annulment of the election results and expressed in their speeches and protest signs is the resignation of President Vladimir Putin.  Besides the variety of opinion within the protesters, the other reason the protests caught everybody off guard is the sheer size.  They have been the largest protest in Russia since Russia became Russia again after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The protests started in early December with a few hundred and have grown significantly since then.  During the December 24^th protest, which was the largest up to that date, the estimated turnout ranged from 28,000, by the Russian Interior Ministry, up to 120,000, by the opposition.  It was then, on that day, that the world really took notice as did some inside Russia, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev called for not only the legislative elections to be annulled but also called for (at the time Prime Minister) President Putin to resign and leave politics altogether, and he sent his greetings to the protesters.  Since then, the organizers, most just playing off of one another with no central leadership, have done what many organizers find impossible to do – sustain.   They have averaged between one and two large protests every month with all with the same goals, demands, and intensity as before.  However, the protesters are not just met with a cold silence from President Putin; indeed they have also been met with massive police arrests, harassment, and home searches and seizures of certain organizers and opposition party official’s property.  Prior to Putin’s re-inauguration on May 7^th there was, again, a massive protest with an estimated 20,000 people, the first so called “March of Millions” and it was at this rally when the largely peaceful protests turned violent.  The entire demonstration was declared illegal and there were reports that police were arresting people who were merely sitting on the street near the protest.  In a Gazeta.ru editorial they wrote “The efforts that the law enforcement [is] going to in order to provoke the protesters are so evident, it’s impossible to remain blind to the plan of radicalization of peaceful protests behind their actions.  The demonstration of force, the bottleneck [of] the protesters were put in to localize the protest on Bolotnaya square, the additional cordons of metal detectors – this is what bullfighters do to bring the bull to bay…This mutual willingness for violence has allowed both sides, with help of several provocations, to turn a peaceful march into a massive clash, the scale of which Moscow hasn’t seen since the 90’s.  Both sides of the barricades saw proof that their adversary understands only brute force, and has to be dealt with accordingly.”  There were over 400 arrests including some of the most important organizers.  However, this did not deter the activists nor their newly fashioned followers.  The organizers were released, most after serving a light jail sentence of 15 days, and then after two weeks of negations the government finally approved the protesters permit to march on June 12^th or as it is known in Russia – Russia Day, the day they declared their independence from the USSR.  However, the government still tried to deter them with a new law that, rushed through just in time for the June 12^th protests, raises the fines for an illegal demonstration 300%, from $30 to $9,021 for each individual.  The June 12^th protest was largely peaceful with an estimated turnout from 15,000 (by the police) to over 100,000 (by the opposition).

            This brings us up to the current state of things.  Another rally was announced for October 7^th calling for President Putin to resign.  And the date is symbolic and this is not lost on the opposition, its President Putin’s 60^th birthday.  After announcing the rally the followers were largely unhappy with the date, but not because they are tired of protesting but because it’s too far away, so they scheduled an additional rally for September 15^th.   I believe this is going to bring about a change in Russian politics.  Most protest fizzle out after a few months – if they even last that long – but they haven’t.  Indeed, as implied above, they want more protests and they are willing to do the footwork to make sure it happens.  I don’t believe they will force Putin’s resignation and, if past performance is any indicator of future intentions, I don’t believe they will stop him from running for a fourth term, but I do believe that these protests will continue and it might cause Putin to lose his bid for a fourth term, or if he wins through fixing the election, it will trigger even more massive protests than now.  The majority of the organizers and protesters are not old; they are young and therefore have plenty of time left to continue organizing the opposition.  These aren’t the future workers of Russia, I believe they are the future leaders of Russia, maybe not all of them, but through their continued protest they will keep their momentum and gather more support as time goes by and will force a dramatic change in the Russian laws, government, and society.

           When the Syrian crisis – some say, maybe correctly, civil war – started the world watched with bated breath.  The U.S. is not a friend of al-Assad and further more he is allied with Iran which we have an increasingly strained relationship with, so it goes without saying that it is in our best interest, politically speaking, that al-Assad is removed from power – politically isolating Iran in the Middle East.  However al-Assad has some very powerful friends and not just Iran.  Both China and Russia have vetoed, twice, UN Security Council Resolutions that could have possibly sanctioned Syria on a truly international level.  Russia’s stated reason for this is that Putin, and therefore Russia, believes that the Syrian people must choose their leader, that the world must respect a country’s sovereignty, and they have stated that they do not believe al-Assad will step down.  But Russia advocating democracy is not an argument that stands on its own for them.  They also have massive arms deals with al-Assad, indeed, they are the largest arms dealer to Syria and just because they have criticized al-Assad’s heavy handed tactics to put down the rebellion does not extend to them stopping arms deals.  They have war ships that are waiting to be deployed to Syria supposedly to protect Russian bases and citizens in the country however there is possibly some ulterior motive here, namely keeping al-Assad in power.  Just this past month a ship carrying weapons to Syria from Russia was stopped off of the British coast.  The ship was forced to turn around and sail back to Russia after the British insurance agency that covers the ship found out that it was carrying arms and immediately terminated their coverage.  This move was harshly criticized by Russia, of course, who claimed that the British government intervened, though Downing Street denies this. 

            Whether we are able to bring Russia around to the U.S. position seems unlikely at this point but as the picture at the start of this section states, we are already funneling arms to the Syrian opposition through the CIA.  Russia, and China for that matter, are both increasingly worried by the recent involvement of U.S. and European powers in other countries revolutions and rightfully so, after all I doubt if what was happening in Syria were to happen in Russia or China we would stand on the side lines – publically, maybe but covertly, I doubt it.  But this is more than that - Putin’s goal, whether stated or not, it to bring back the Russian super-power he grew up with and protected when he was in the KGB.  This is his way of flexing Russia’s muscle, and trying to show the world that they’ve still got it, so to speak.

            In conclusion, these two events – or series of events – that I’ve profiled provide a snapshot into a changing Russia, both domestically and internationally.  Russia is becoming more involved in international matters and at the same time changing domestically.  They are flexing their, now considerable, muscle with regard to Iran and Syria and are showing that they have a say in the way the world is shaped.  And the protests have the chance to rip Russia away from its past corruption and fixed elections and move toward a democratic society, however they design it, a true democracy nonetheless.  At this point only one thing is certain with Russia and that is change and we can only hope that its change that is driven by the Russian people and serves the best interest of the Russian people and by extension, the world at large.

Text of a speech I gave on racism

What if I told you that in Germany 42% of the people on death row were Jewish? What would you think? Does that sound maybe a little disproportionate? It brings back memories of a different time in their history doesn’t it?

Fortunately that statement isn’t true. Germany does not have the death penalty because as one German put it “There is no way with our history that we can ever engage in the systematic killing of human beings.” BUT, replace “Germany” with the United States and Jewish with black and that statement becomes true.

Even though, according to the US Census Bureau in 2010, Black people made up only 12.6% of the American population, they make up 42% of the people on death row, according to the Equal Justice Initiative. And make up 41% of the prison population at large.

We need to have a talk about racism. And we finally are in this nation, unfortunately Trayvon Martin had to die for us to realize this. And it’s important that you realize this is not a made up thing. Racism is alive in the United States even though many deny it, the facts speak for themselves.

According the EJI:
1) Nearly one out of every three black men in their twenties is in jail, prison, or on probation or parole.
2) Black men are eight times more likely to be in jail or prison than white men.
3) And if these trends continue they estimate that 40% of the black male population in the State of Alabama will permanently lose the right to vote as a result of a criminal conviction.
4) And a 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics analysis showed that 32% of black males born in 2001 can expect to spend time in prison.
Think about that. Imagine being born into a world where you a nearly pre-destined to go to prison.

Not only that but that you’re more likely to go to prison than college.
1) In 2006 the Census Bureau issued a report that found more than three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms and as for whites, more than twice as many live in college housing than in prison or jail.

And lest you think that once they include those who don’t actually live on campus the numbers even out, civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander writes in her book The New Jim Crow that “In June 2001, there were nearly 20,000 more black men in the Illinois state prison system than enrolled in the state’s public universities. In fact, there were more black men in the state’s correctional facilities that year just on drug charges than the total number of black men enrolled in undergraduate degree programs in state universities.”

Now, we can spend decades trying to define what exactly justice is, I mean people have been arguing over Plato’s definition for 2400 years, but we can all agree on one thing, and that is that justice is always fair. And from these numbers there is only one conclusion that we can come to about America’s judicial system – that it is one that is unfair.
And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, racism is deep within our own American businesses and culture.
In 2010 the U.S. Census Bureau released a study that showed that per capita income for blacks was only $18,054 compared with $28,502 for whites. In other words black people earn 57 cents for every dollar earned by white people.
And that same study found that 27% of black people were living below poverty

But it only matters how much you get paid if you actually do get paid
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in February of this year the unemployment rate for the civilian population overall was 7.3% however the unemployment for black people was double that at 14%

And it’s not just how much they get paid it’s also how much they pay.
The Center for Responsible Lending issued a report in which they found that black people were 31% to 34% more likely to receive a higher-rate loan than whites.

And perhaps the worst expression of racism is the rise in hate groups.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate groups have been on a steady rise since 2000, however, the most disturbing part is the last few years. So called Patriot and Militia groups who believe that the federal government is out to get them and trade on conspiracy theories have jumped from just 149 groups in 2008 to 1274 in 2011. While many things happened in between 2008 and 2011, one thing stands out: President Barack Obama.

With these facts laid before us we can see that we have a major problem with race in this country. In the judicial system, in the political system, in the business system, and in our culture right next to us.

Now you may ask yourself: How did this happen? How could this happen? And most off all: Who did this?

But you need not look far!

In 1989 as a result of the fall of communism Vaclav Havel was elected president in the first free election in Czechoslovakia since 1948. Three days later, he gave his first New Year’s address to the nation and he spoke about what had happened in preceding years. He told them that: “The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment.” And he went on to say: “When I talk about the contaminated moral atmosphere, I am not talking just about the gentlemen who eat organic vegetables and do not look out of the plane windows. I am talking about all of us. We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all – though naturally to differing extents – responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators."

Now replace totalitarian with racism and you still have a true statement because institutional racism is just as insidious and we are all its co-creators. Now what are you going to do to stop it?