Christina Hansen writes:
I came across an NPR story this morning that seemed pertinent to our class discussion of human rights in International Law. China has "hundreds - at least hundreds" of black jails where critics of local government officials are secretly detained to quiet dissent. The Chinese government denies their existence, but in the story, a 42-year-old Chinese woman who has been detained more than 10 times leads the reporter directly to one of these sites.
Much like the exercise we worked on in Thursday's class, this story raises many human rights concerns in my mind. The red flags here include arbitrary arrest/detention, the silencing of dissent through fear and intimidation, and the lack of redress and/or remedies for citizens whose rights have been violated by the government.
So if the United Nations decided to hold China accountable for these illegal acts, what would happen? Would China really care enough to change their ways? I understand they are a powerful country. The Lovelace case showed that even though the Human Rights committee is unable to sanction Canada, it can affect change to Canada's decision. I feel as though Canada complied because it would look bad for them with their type of government, to take away someone's rights. But China is a communist country and it comes as no surprise to me that they would do these types of acts to people who protest against the government. So could anything force China to stop doing this?
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