Chinese Takeaway

Hot on the heels of yet another Chinese journalist getting busted for posting articles relating to the Tiananmen Square massacre, is another arrest of a cyber-dissident that the Chinese Government seems to enjoy so much.

In a wonderful twist sure to make Zhao Ziyang spin in his grave at something approaching light-speed, everybody's favourite group of head busters have decided to use his death as an excuse for arresting, well, pretty much anyone they feel like regardless of whether or not they actually posted anything online about it. Hence, Zhang Lin (occasional cyber dissident and Falun Gong supporter), who has to date racked up eight years of on and off detention, has been dragged off to the clink. This is on the basis that "preventative measures" were needed to prevent men like him posting articles about a leader no one speaks about anymore lest they have their head smashed in. Police confiscated his computer and told his wife that he would be detained for just two weeks, and then released.

However, he was originally arrested on the 29th of January.

Is this yet another cyber-dissident likely to spend the rest of his life busting rocks simply because he dared to speak his mind? Looks like it, as the release rate for these people is rather slight, to say the least. Meanwhile the usual suspects (such as Nortel, who created China's Golden Shield) continue to make Eastern cash at the price of Western outrage.