BEIJING — A veteran dissident was sentenced to three years in prison after casting a spotlight on poorly built schools that collapsed and killed thousands of children during China’s massive earthquake last year — an apparent government attempt to squelch such information. Huang Qi, founder of a human rights Web site, had been charged with illegally possessing state secrets, his wife Zeng Li said Monday by telephone. His detention in June 2008 came after several posts on his blog that criticized the government’s response to the massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province a month earlier and killed about 90,000 people. Huang, 46, had alleged that state-controlled media provided skewed reports on relief efforts and accused the government of obstructing the work of non-governmental organizations responding to the disaster, according to reports at the time by Paris-based monitoring group Reporters Without Borders.

Source: AP

In a statement, Amnesty International called for Huang’s immediate release, saying he was being punished merely for helping illuminate the tribulations of families whose children died in the earthquake. Amnesty said several supporters who asked to attend the sentencing were turned away and beaten by police who ringed the courthouse. It gave no details, and their identities were not immediately known.

The sentence could give grist to critics of President Barack Obama, who faulted him for not being more outspoken on human rights during his visit to China last week. While Obama raised the topics of universal rights and Internet freedom, he largely avoided the appearance of lecturing his hosts over such issues, something Beijing has responded to in past with indignation.

If the world’s greatest superpower could do nothing, can Singapore do anything? Well, maybe not for China but we could at least take care of our own backyard by speaking out against any injustice, negligence, incompetence or abuse of basic human rights.

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Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 
1. If you want [...]

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