MARCUS GEE
August 1, 2008

Why make such a fuss about human rights in China, some ask? After all, the vast majority of China’s 1.3 billion people are scarcely touched by the Communist government’s rigid controls on dissent. Hundreds of millions of them have clawed their way out of poverty without the benefit of “Western style” rights and they seem quite content as they are. If they don’t challenge the government head on or make other conspicuous trouble, they can go about living their lives with a degree of personal freedom unheard of in earlier times.

True, all true. And yet. Consider, for a moment, the case of Liu Shaokun. News reports say authorities have sent the schoolteacher in quake-stricken Sichuan province to labour camp for posting pictures of collapsed schools on the Internet. Mr. Liu will serve a year of “re-education through labour” - a sentence that officials use to punish troublemakers without the nuisance of a formal charge or a trial. He is accused of “disseminating rumours and destroying social order.”

His real offence is embarrassing the government. After the May 12 Sichuan earthquake that killed close to 70,000 people, parents of children lost in the disaster complained that many schools fell down because they were poorly built. More than 7,000 classrooms and dormitories collapsed, crushing thousands of students. Suspecting that officials had built schools on the cheap and pocketed the cash - a reasonable bet in graft-ridden provincial China - angry parents began to protest. Some held sit-ins at government buildings. Others marched in the streets holding pictures of their dead children.

At first, the government let them speak their minds. There was even talk of a new era of openness as authorities let foreign and domestic reporters into the quake zone to cover the disaster and the impressive government relief effort.

But with the Olympics approaching and the parents pressing their case for an investigation into shoddy school construction, authorities launched an orchestrated campaign to suppress the protests. Police fenced off the collapsed schools. Bulldozers started levelling the ruins, wiping out evidence that might be used in an investigation. The Propaganda Department prohibited the Chinese press from reporting on the school collapses.

Most despicably, the government sent its agents around to the parents with hush money, promising them nearly $9,000 in cash, plus a pension, if they agreed to stop making a fuss. In one compensation contract that officials offered to parents, signatories agree to “obey the law and maintain the social order” and not to “take part in any activity that disturbs post-earthquake reconstruction.” The document even praises a government that “mobilized society to help us and alleviate our suffering.” According to a report in The New York Times, the parents were told that they would get nothing if they refused to sign.

Many of those who continue to protest are being rounded up. Before Mr. Liu was detained, authorities detained activist Huang Qi for “illegally acquiring state secrets.” Plainclothes agents stopped him on the street, pushed him into a car and took him away. His crime: posting a website article about parents demanding an investigation into school collapses.

Most of these people are not dissidents. They are not trying to overthrow the government or even persuade it to hold elections. They just want the truth about why their innocent children died. To treat them as criminals not only exposes the true nature of a regime that is posing at Olympics time as a champion of social justice and peaceful development. It demonstrates why human rights in China really do matter.

Despite the breathtaking progress China has made, its people still face myriad injustices. The death of thousands of children in Sichuan is just one example. Millions of migrant workers are abused and mistreated. Countless people are evicted from their homes with little notice or compensation by corrupt officials or venal developers. Villagers are poisoned by industrial pollution, HIV-AIDS sufferers are persecuted and poor women are trafficked as brides.

If these injustices are to be addressed, Chinese need the right to speak up about them without risking a visit from the police. They need the right to organize when authorities don’t act. Most of all they need brave people like Liu Shaokun to help them take a stand. “Troublemakers” like him are invaluable in a society where authority is never held to account at the ballot box or by the courts. Without such truth-tellers, the corruption and cover-ups will go on. More unsafe classrooms will be built. More children will die.

Human rights aren’t just a luxury for pampered Westerners. They matter most to the poor and powerless. Just ask the grieving mothers and fathers of Sichuan.

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