Mitt Romney helps China persecute Christians

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: Mitt Romney helps China persecute Christians

Brother Jeb, maybe I'm missing something here, but didn't that story say that the Chinese were using the cameras to monitor a Buddhist monastery?

The article is from the Jew York Times - if they had used Christians as an example, the Jew Yorkers would have awarded Mitt Romney a medal.

But of course the Jew York times will only shed tears over Lamaists, with their insane superstitions:

“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.” -Dalai Lama XIV

Insane! But the Chinese government/Mitt Romney is not spying on them to prevent heresy. The Chinese government/Mitt Romney is spying on them to keep the The Chinese government in power and the business partners of the Chinese government (ie Mitt Romney) rich.

[WWJDnow]

Re: Mitt Romney helps China persecute Christians

Brother Jeb, maybe I'm missing something here, but didn't that story say that the Chinese were using the cameras to monitor a Buddhist monastery? I'm not sure what's worse, a Buddhist or a Mormon or a Chinaman or a commie, but somebody has to keep an eye on the Buddhists to keep them from practicing witchcraft and committing sins so vile that I can't even mention them here in mixed company.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

New York Times:

"BEIJING — As the Chinese government forges ahead on a multibillion-dollar effort to blanket the country with surveillance cameras, one American company stands to profit: Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney. ...human rights advocates say in China they are also used to intimidate and monitor political and religious dissidents. “There are video cameras all over our monastery, and their only purpose is to make us feel fear,” said Loksag, a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Gansu Province. He said the cameras helped the authorities identify and detain nearly 200 monks who participated in a protest at his monastery in 2008.

Mr. Romney reported on his August disclosure forms that he and his wife earned a minimum of $5.6 million from Bain assets held in their blind trusts and retirement accounts. Bain employees and executives are also among the largest donors to his campaign, and their contributions accounted for 10 percent of the money received over the past year by Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney “super PAC.”

Bain’s decision to enter China’s fast-growing surveillance industry raises questions about the direct role that American corporations play in outfitting authoritarian governments with technology that can be used to repress their own citizens.

It also comes at a delicate time for Mr. Romney, who has frequently called for a hard line against the Chinese government’s suppression of religious freedom and political dissent...

Chinese cities are rushing to construct their own surveillance systems. Chongqing, in southwest China, is spending $4.2 billion on a network of 500,000 cameras, according to the state news media. Guangdong Province, the manufacturing powerhouse adjacent to Hong Kong, is mounting one million cameras. In Beijing, the municipal government is seeking to place cameras in all entertainment venues, adding to the skein of 300,000 cameras that were installed here for the 2008 Olympics.

By marrying Internet, cellphone and video surveillance, the government is seeking to create an omniscient monitoring system, said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. “When it comes to surveillance, China is pretty upfront about its totalitarian ambitions,” he said.

For the legion of Chinese intellectuals, democracy advocates and religious figures who have tangled with the government, surveillance cameras have become inescapable.


Yang Weidong, a politically active filmmaker, said a phalanx of 13 cameras were installed in and around his apartment building last year after he submitted an interview request to President Hu Jintao, drawing the ire of domestic security agents....

“The scale of intrusion into people’s private lives is unprecedented,” she said in a phone interview. “Now when I walk on the street, I feel so vulnerable, like the police are watching me all the time.”