Heaneyland!

China: still one of the worst places in the world

Did you know that no one is protesting at the Olympics because all their grievances have been addressed? It's true!

Some political analysts say the police may be refusing to enforce the government’s order, announced last month, to allow protest zones. Chinese lawyers and human rights advocates also suggested a more cynical motivation — that the authorities were using the possibility of legal demonstrations as a ploy to lure restive citizens into declaring their intention to protest, allowing the police to take action against them.

...[W]ith four days left before the closing ceremony, the authorities acknowledge that they have yet to allow a single protest. They claim that most of the people who filed applications had their grievances addressed, obviating the need for a public expression of discontent.

...Officials say that they received 77 protest applications but that nearly all of them were dropped after the complaints were “properly addressed by relevant authorities or departments through consultations.”

So that all worked out! Well, maybe except for the two elderly women sentenced to re-education through forced labor (since I'm pretty sure their complaint was not "We're not getting enough exercise").