Why is KRUDD spending $60 million on Internet censorship? (link: http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24128728-15306,00.html).

Why did a Gold Coast teenager get arrested and charged for wearing a “blasphemous” t-shirt? (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23919553-2,00.html?from=public_rss)

Why was Haneef held without charge for 12 days?

Why was Dr Phillip Nitschke’s book on assisted suicide banned? (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/02/25/1856282.htm)

Why were two Islamic books banned? (http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Islamic-books-banned-for-inciting-terror/2006/07/11/1152383724467.html)

China has censorship. Australia has censorship. Ours may be less strict and more sophisticated, but if you want to argue against the principle of censorship, let’s fight it at home first. I’ll be there with you. But let’s avoid the mass hysteria and hypocrisy of criticizing easy targets. That’s just the way the mass media and governments deflect attention from what is happening at home.

It may not like it, but so what?”

As much a fan as I am of free speech, I’m not sure we should start tying to impose Western values on China. They have as much right as any nation to decide what should be allowed and not. I’m not sure the world would be a better place if all nations cloned the values and laws of, say the USA. It would certainly be less interesting.

China is certainly not the only country to have Government mandated blocking of access to ‘unsuitable’ internet content – Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam all take the same approach. Believe it or not, it is also provided for in Australian Commonwealth law (although it has not been enforced in this manner to date).

In contrast to Australia, governments in comparable countries including the USA, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and various European countries have chosen to legislate to give citizens a right in domestic law to freedom of expression similar to that contained in the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This right is by no means absolute and does not stop governments from creating or enforcing laws restricting freedom of expression. However, to it seems governments in these countries have not enacted or indicated any intent to enact, Internet censorship legislation as restrictive of adults’ freedom of expression, as that existing and proposed in Australia.

Western countries such as the UK, however, particularly post Se 9/11, enforce more and more ludicrously restrictive and invasive laws that encroach on civil liberties and free expression.

Take the example of Brad Jayakody, a 30 year old man who was refused access to his flight from London to Dusseldorf, and threatened with arrest for the heinous crime of sporting a t-shirt with a picture of a friendly cartoon robot – Optimus Prime from the Transformers’ cartoon, defender of humanity against the evil decepticons!

Also in some countries, it has been found that anti-terrorism laws are being abused, in one example in the UK in April, they were used to authorize surveillance conducted on a mother and her three kids, wrongly suspected of lying on a school application form.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/747/38635

Not long ago Australia introduced laws in which persons can be held without charge for up to two weeks.

The “patriot act” in the US also encroaches on civil liberties, and I could go on. Suffice to say, our own ‘freedoms’ are not what exactly what they could be either.

Perhaps we should get our own house in order before resorting to Godwin’s Law and slagging off another culture as if they were the denizens of evil.

We are talking about the populous country in the world. A country that the world’s economy needs more than the other way around.

A government that does not car about right’s or public opinion. It is not a democracy , it is not accountable to the people. So short of civil war it does not care , well not enough to change.

Everyone in the western world could protest and it would not change. Now if we convinced our governments not to trade with China then they would listen. But that would hurt our own standard of living so we won’t do that will we? Global recession verse cleaning up human rights in China. I know which way the majority will choose.

Maybe to expect the last bulkhead of a particular political ideology, and a country which is second only to the US in global geo-strategic importance, to change the way they run themselves just because a few thousand people in coloured tracksuits rock up to kick balls, throw metal discs around and run/cycle/swim in straight lines and circles is just a bit foolish on our part.

With a big step back and a deep breath I sometimes can’t help but wonder, if we’re at the point of using the Olympic Games as a catalyst for such fundamental political change, maybe we have to admit that we’re really clutching at straws.