China in sacked lecturer "shocker"..!

Well, they locked up the demonstrators. Then they locked up the lawyers paid to defend those demonstrators. Now China are going the whole hog and sacking the journalists, paid to cover the lawyers and demonstrators. In another great piece of forward thinking, Journalism Lecturer Jiao Guobiao has been sacked from his post and his courses shut down. The reason? He criticized the "publicity department" (I can see why they changed it from "Propaganda department" at any rate) for obstructing free thinking and honest debate in China.

One quick job shift later and he was resigned to working in the archives department, but it wasn't enough to save him - he now joins the other masses of unemployed out on the streets, and his retirement gift is looking more like a pair of handcuffs and less like a carriage clock.

"Prime minister Wen Jiabao recently called the Internet a new place to present political decisions and express his opinions," Liu Xiaobo (a defender of press freedom) said, "and many Internet users appreciated his words. But now even he is not allowed to access university websites to find out what young people think because he is not a student."

Rather silly, isn't it? However it's doubtful his words will fall on benevolent ears, and Jiao Guobiao will be lucky to be flipping burgers before the year is out. Do I hear the familar sound of rocks breaking in the distance?