Chinese Democracy

No, the real thing in action, not Axl Rose's pipe dream of a G n' R album:

Jianli returned to his homeland in 1989 to support students in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. When Beijing found out about his involvement, they added him to a list of approximately 50 dissidents who were formally blacklisted and forbidden to return to China. Jianli fled again to America and became a permanent resident under a program which provides citizenship to Tiananmen Square activists.

In the spring of 2002, prohibition notwithstanding, he entered China with a friend's passport so he could visit with political activists and observe labor unrest in the northeastern part of the country. When Chinese officials discovered he was in the country they detained him at Kunming Airport and took him into custody. He spoke with his wife from a hotel; it would be their last contact for more than a year.

Since then, Jianli has been held incommunicado--in solitary confinement, handcuffed, and denied any reading materials or exercise. He has been tortured with electric wands and clamps on his fingers more than 100 times. His family
has not been kept up to date on his whereabouts since the Chinese government prevented him from sending letters home and wouldn't allow Fu to visit him until January 2005.

Most recently, his lawyer says, Jianli was beaten by four prison guards and since he is denied legal counsel (Genser pursues Jianli's case through Fu) he has no way of filing complaints about the abuse. The Chinese government violated their own law when they refused to release Jianli after 37 days, which is required if no warrant is filed.

Funny how the usual suspects so concerned with human rights when Western nations "violate" them don't hit the streets in protest when real abuses perpetrated by their Communist idols occur.

Can't make an omelette without cracking heads, I guess.