An Ominous Knifing in China

Dissident Chinese blogger Xu Lia has been knifed:

Xu Lai, the writer behind Pro-State in Flames, was speaking at the One Way Street bookshop in Beijing on Saturday afternoon when he was attacked, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported. He had been speaking for a couple of hours and was answering questions when a fracas erupted.

His wife said that two men forced Xu Lai into the men’s toilet. She chased after them and found that one was holding a vegetable knife and the other a dagger. The men escaped, leaving Xu Lai on the ground with a cut to his stomach.

Why would anyone want to stab Xu Lai?

Mr Xu is famous for his biting and often sarcastic style in commenting on social and political issues. … His blog is believed to carry many entries penned by other contributors.

Blogs are extremely popular in China, where newspapers are heavily censored. Cyberspace police patrol the internet, swiftly closing sites deemed too risqué, but they remain the most important medium for self-expression in China.

Cristy Li is right to wonder what the Chinese government might know about the stabbing. As she notes, the Chicoms have been cracking down on free speech online. She also notes that our current crop of power-drunk Democrats aren’t fans of free speech either, as demonstrated by their increasingly open plans to censor conservative radio, and asks,

Can the Internet be far away? How long will it be before Dems in Congress take a page from China and begin blocking access to websites they don’t approve of?

Henry “Phantom of the Congress” Waxman answers her questions:

Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the “Fairness Doctrine” without actually calling it such.

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. … Copps has been a supporter of putting in place policies that would allow the federal government to have greater oversight over the content that TV and radio stations broadcast to the public, and both the FCC and Waxman are looking to licensing and renewal of licensing as a means of enforcing “Fairness Doctrine” type policies without actually using the hot-button term “Fairness Doctrine.” …

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is also looking at how it can put in place policies that would allow it greater oversight of the Internet. “Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we’re seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information…,” says one committee staffer. “We’re at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities.”

A Democrat committee member illustrates why you should never ever take government cheese, even on the rare occasions that it tastes good:

Thanks to the stimulus package, we’ve established that broadband networks — the Internet — are critical, national infrastructure. We think that gives us an opening to look at what runs over that critical infrastructure.

That is, the Internet belongs to Big Brother, so Big Brother will determine what can be said over it.

In typical Orwellian style, liberals funded by the sinister George Soros are pretending that their radio/Internet censorship plans are the opposite of censorship:

Also involved in “brainstorming” on [the] Fairness Doctrine and online monitoring has been the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, which has published studies pressing for the Fairness Doctrine, as well as the radical MoveOn.org, which has been speaking to committee staff about policies that would allow them to use their five to six million person database to mobilize complaints against radio, TV or online entities they perceive to be limiting free speech or limiting opinion.

If pulling the plug on Rush and Drudge doesn’t silence opposition, it shouldn’t be hard to find Obamunist thugs willing to pull a knife in the men’s room.

xu-lai.jpg
Xu Lai may have paid the price for blogging in a country run by leftists.

On tips from Cristy Li and Cheetah. Hat tip: Free Republic. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!