serialdeviant.org(y)

Two more arrested

Two more people in China have been arrested, charged with leaking state secrets.

Lu Jianhua, 45, a sociologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), was taken into custody by agents of the state security apparatus in April, said the sources who asked not to be identified.

Chen Hui, an assistant to the director of the CASS General Office, was detained around May, the sources said, adding that Chen had had access to classified documents.

It was not immediately clear if the two cases were linked or if the detentions had anything to do with Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based reporter for Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper who has been in custody in China since April accused of spying.

Nor was it clear what the secrets were or to whom they may have been leaked.

The detentions came ahead of a regular round-up of dissidents ahead of the sensitive anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square killings of pro-democracy protesters.

My favourite part is where the Foreign Ministry spokesman said

China respects the legal reporting rights of journalists, Kong said, adding that journalists must abide by professional ethics, laws and regulations.

“They must not enjoy special rights and elude investigation when they break the law just because they are journalists,” Kong told a news conference.

Nice way of publicly pronouncing guilt without presenting any real evidence.

Moving the goalposts

I guess Weapons of Mass Destruction are so 2002 (read: there’s something seriously dysfunctional about people who will never, ever admit to having been wrong — but then again it’s because their hypocrisy allowed them to lie about it from the start): “The former Defense Department second-in-command told a development conference on Thursday the Iraq war was morally justified, in part because of Saddam Hussein’s human rights record.” — World Bank’s Wolfowitz seeks to defuse Iraq doubts

The pros and cons of putting convicts in close proximity to sharp objects: discuss

There’s a row going on about prison inmates getting acupuncture therapy on the NHS, while victim support groups claim that money is being needlessly spent on perpetrators of crime rather than their victims.

There is probably an element of seeing the functions of prison differently. It’s a place to lock criminals up, to keep society safe from them — that’s one. The other is that it is a place for rehabilitation. They are probably both, in varying degrees. Predatory criminals should certainly not receive preferential treatment over their victims, but I suppose the prison service (or is it the commercial provider) has a duty of care over their ‘charges’ — the question is where to draw the line.

The victim has not had their liberty taken from them as the convicted criminal has. They might be maimed, psychologically scarred, or dead (and the victims are their families). Is it even possible to place the two (victim and criminal) on the same scale to see what help either should receive?

(At least they aren’t giving sex offenders Viagra. Now that’s a joke.)

Txt 2 quit

An interesting study on text messages and quitting smoking. Once again, if you’re not ready to quit, no amount of persuasive messages or freebies will do the job. It’s all in your head. The physical cravings go away after a few weeks — it’s the psychological ones that fuck you.

Oddjack

Oddjack: Singaporeans should brush up on their gambling hipster quotient before the casinos Integrated Resorts open.

Paranoia is fun

Here’s a conspiracy for you:

The Bloggers.SG convention is being held at a time when those studying overseas are back in Singapore on holiday so that the government can video record them on spy cameras and make sure their host countries get told they are potential terrorists so they will get strip-searched and thrown into prison upon their return. Voila, someone else’s ‘problem’.

The real China

I reckon this is a typical tourist experience in much of China. You’re cocooned by the luxury and comfort of your hotel / resort, enchanted by the modernity of, say, a city centre completely designed and planned with the cosmopolitan jet-setter in mind — and then you step out of the city and check out the Chinese tourist attractions, and maybe you even step out of those, and see the real China. (Note: Xiamen is not the real China.)

Coffeeshop talk

What I would give for a kopitiam with a Chinese / Malay / Indian uncle who makes the teh tarik and kopi peng, selling me Green Spot or Sarsi, so I could sit cross-legged and kau peh kau bu about why things have become so goddamn teruk.

Choices have to be made. By me. I fucking hate having to make choices, expecially those of any great import. Say it was you, and you had to choose between:

  1. doing something you’d promised yourself you would do (distinct from something you’d dreamed of doing) — where a sense of personal gratification is high, flexing one’s creative writing skills is a frequent occurrence, but projected (monetary) rewards are currently completely irregular and/or unreliable; and
  2. doing something that was originally a next-to-last resort — where financial stability is slightly better than option 1, but boredom and pointlessness is the name of the game for the most part.

These are mutually exclusive options. What would you do?

Hardly a climate of fear

Steven, I don’t know you, but I disagree that Singaporeans live in a climate of fear. I don’t think anyone fears for their very life if and when we speak out politically. I’ve run a personal weblog with mildly political opinions (okay, I may be understating it a bit) for over four years now, and I’ve never felt that the authorities would come and execute me summarily (or extra-judiciously). I think you’re overstating things somewhat.

Living in a climate of paranoia and self-censorship, however…

Update: I would use a similar response to this post, What We Fight For. Yes, I agree that Singapore is … authoritarian? Autocratic? However, the government’s need to continue being business-friendly to the developed world means that the police / government doesn’t send thugs out to shoot us when we dare express a political opinion. I take issue with LHM’s statement, “America has always stood for liberty, freedom and democracy throughout the world,” because America has always been selective about the application of its beliefs. It would be either completely hyprocritical or naive to argue otherwise. Governments do not operate to further an ideal; they are (for the most part) pragmatic.