Month: April 2008

Will There Be More Blood on Their Hands?

Lhadon writes:

The photos in this video are hard to look at. They are of Tibetans shot and killed inside Tibet over the past month. This is the reality of Chinese rule in Tibet and what Chinese authorities do to Tibetans who dare to protest. This is what we can expect if the IOC allows China to take the torch through Tibet in May and June. The IOC doesn’t seem to get it?! Maybe this video will help them see the reality.

The IOC has once again refused to stop the torchwashing of China’s occupation of Tibet. The relay through Tibet will likely produce protests and those protests will likely be met with violence by Chinese security forces. If and when that happens, the IOC will bear just as much responsibility as the China Chinese government.

Cyber Attacks From China

Business Week has an in-depth, cover article on cyber attacks originating from China on top US defense contractors and military and intelligence agencies in the American government. Tibetan support groups like Students for a Free Tibet also receive frequent cyber attacks.

Peng’s 3322.org and sister sites have become a source of concern to the U.S. government and private firms. Cyber security firm Team Cymru sent a confidential report, reviewed by BusinessWeek, to clients on Mar. 7 that illustrates how 3322.org has enabled many recent attacks. In early March, the report says, Team Cymru received “a spoofed e-mail message from a U.S. military entity, and the PowerPoint attachment had a malware widget embedded in it.” The e-mail was a spear-phish. The computer that controlled the malicious code in the PowerPoint? Cybersyndrome.3322.org—the same China-registered computer in the attempted attack on Booz Allen. Although the cybersyndrome Internet address may not be located in China, the top five computers communicating directly with it were—and four were registered with a large state-owned Internet service provider, according to the report.

A person familiar with Team Cymru’s research says the company has 10,710 distinct malware samples that communicate to masters registered through 3322.org. Other groups reporting attacks from computers hosted by 3322.org include activist group Students for a Free Tibet, the European Parliament, and U.S. Bancorp (USB), according to security reports. Team Cymru declined to comment. The U.S. government has pinpointed Peng’s services as a problem, too. In a Nov. 28, 2007, confidential report from Homeland Security’s U.S. CERT obtained by BusinessWeek,

“Cyber Incidents Suspected of Impacting Private Sector Networks,” the federal cyber watchdog warned U.S. corporate information technology staff to update security software to block Internet traffic from a dozen Web addresses after spear-phishing attacks. “The level of sophistication and scope of these cyber security incidents indicates they are coordinated and targeted at private-sector systems,” says the report. Among the sites named: Peng’s 3322.org, as well as his 8800.org, 9966.org, and 8866.org. Homeland Security and U.S. CERT declined to discuss the report.

It’s hard to say whether the Chinese government is organizing these attacks themselves, or if they’re done by intrepid nationalistic Chinese hackers. But one source in the Business Week piece cites the People’s Liberation Army – China’s military – as having “”tens of thousands” of trainees launching attacks on U.S. computer networks.”

The attacks SFT, defense contractors, and the US government get are real. They seek to intimidate, threaten, and disable the targets of the attacks. When the target is a Tibet support group like SFT, the goal is to globalize the oppression found inside Tibet. When the attack is on governmental agencies and defense contractors, the goal may be something with far more deadly repercussions. In both cases this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. If the Chinese government is organizing or funding these attacks, that should be a matter of international diplomatic debate. If they are done by private citizens, the Chinese government has an obligation to stop the source of the attacks. As there is massive censorship and tens of thousands of full-time Chinese government internet monitors, the continued propagation of attacks, even if done by private citizens, must be assumed to be taking place with at least the tacit approval of the Chinese government.

FISA Was Different

Glenn Greenwald points out that the Republicans may be dropping FISA as an imperative issue for the remainder of the legislative session. He makes the case that the reason this happened was the strong principles shown by Democrats:

This is the first time in a long time that right-wing fear-mongering on Terrorism hasn’t succeeded. Given that virtually everyone (including me) assumed that the Congress would ultimately enact the new FISA bill demanded by Bush, it demonstrates that smart strategies combined with intense citizen activism can succeed, even when the Establishment — its lobbyists, Congressional representatives and pundits — lines up in bipartisan fashion behind their latest measure. And it removes the Democrats’ principal excuse that they cannot resist Bush’s Terrorism demands without suffering politically.

I think this is exactly right. It can be tied back to the strong grassroots pressure from blogs, the leadership by Chris Dodd, and the involvement of advocacy groups like the ACLU, EFF, and MoveOn.  Together we created the political will to defend the rule of law and stand up to the Bush administration. As a result, Democrats have possibly secured a critical victory. They just need to stick by their guns and refuse to allow a bad bill to move forward. Beyond that, they should remember the recipe that lead to their success and their support so they can continue to do the right thing legislatively and electorally in the future.

Video of Labrang Monk Protests

This is video of monks in Labrang protesting during a dog and pony show put on for foreign and Chinese journalists by the Chinese government. You can hear them shouting “Bhod Gyalo,” which means victory for Tibet and is a common cry among supporters of Tibet’s independence. You can also see them carrying a large Tibetan flag – which is banned in Tibet and the  possession of which alone is likely to send them to jail.  This protest is yet another unequivocal statement of Tibetans commitment to freedom.

Protesting the Torchwashing of China’s Atrocities

Kirk James Murphy M.D. has a great post at FireDogLake about the San Francisco torch relay and the protests surrounding it.

As the whole watching world knows, today China’s attempt to torchwash nearly sixty years of brutal imperialism in Tibet, the massacres of Tienanmen Square, and the genocide that is Darfur failed on the streets of San Francisco. The fearful overlords of China – and the US – whittled an already condensed “relay” down to a three mile “hide and seek” that started in midtown SF, and crammed multiple runners on each short leg. Even then, one brave torch holder from the South Bronx used her spirit to whip out a Tibetan flag. Today, our freedoms doused China’s Great Torch March Forward. And last night, the ancient values to Tibet doused our rage and anger at China’s crimes. Both Tibet and the US shared their freedoms – one spiritual, one political – with their sadly impoverished comrades on the other side of the world.

Today in SF I saw thousands come out to celebrate the freedoms our sad Boi Mayor tried to deny us – and extend those freedoms around the globe to peoples they’d never met. Save for a few adolescent exceptions, we were joyous and courteous – much like the PRC supporters wearing pre-printed, mass produced slogans praising China’s freedoms. My organizer friends and I counted only three arrests (two of them anticipated from “lock-downs”) among a real “people’s army” of thousands who reclaimed our Constitution from the mewling “leaders” – local, State, and Federal – who thought they could defy our best traditions and offshore our greatest treasure to the PRC.

And who were our allies when Mayor Hair Gel hid the march route from the people – but apparently let Beijing’s servants in on the “secret”? Public servants in uniform – disgusted by the ruse and the Boi Mayor’s supine choice to let Beijing’s secret police on our streets.

The MSM I’ve too often reviled — best surveillance force we’ve ever had. And hundreds of regular folk who phoned the torch’s location: on all three miles of the route through SF.

By 3:30, the whole farce was over – the Blood Olympics Torch and the secret police minders took the buses where they’d spent much of the day off to the airport. The gala “closing ceremony” in SF was canceled – replaced by some tawdry little sham at SFO.

And the night before – the fight was already over. We’d won before the whole desecration ever started. And we in SF had been given a great gift…a gift we used today.

That gift is the gift of freedom. Thousands of people came to the streets of San Francisco this week to protest for Tibetan freedom and human rights in China. Despite underhanded efforts by SF Mayor Gavin Newsom to suppress protest before and during the torch relay, protests took place that continued to demonstrate the global opposition to the Beijing Olympics and the torchwashing of China’s brutal occupation of Tibet. Murphy’s post goes on to discuss how the political dynamics of Newsom’s aspirations for greater affinity with the Chinese and IOC bigwigs corrupted his ability to exercise the freedoms that he too enjoys and, as Mayor, is responsible for protecting.

I’ve long said that one of the fundamental reasons that I work for Tibetan independence is because I have meaningful rights as an American that Tibetans do not. I can write what I want on this blog. I can assemble with others in public and call for freedom in Tibet while waiving a Tibetan flag and walking alongside a monk who carries a picture of the Dalai Lama. I can do these things and not fear detention, torture, imprisonment, or violence. These are all rights and protections that Tibetans lack. While we enjoy these rights and while Tibetans seek freedom without them, I see a moral responsibility to act in solidarity with them. Murphy’s post gets at this and recognizes that people in San Francisco, Paris, and London have made a stark contrast between their real freedoms and the repression that exists in China. In so doing, the free global community has helped stop China’s use of the Olympic Games as a political tool to whitewash their atrocities in Tibet.

Update:

Calitics has some great photos of yesterday’s protests in San Francisco, courtesy of Bob Brigham.

A Disrupted Relay

This is a map of the torch route and the sorts of protests, crowds, and events that took place along the way – as well as alterations to the route.

google_earth

I was getting updates on my cell phone from the SMS feed going out on Twitter; this succeeded in conveying the true chaotic nature of the chess match between protesters and the relay organizers. I haven’t seen pictures yet, but there were at least two banner hangs done along the route. The torch was hidden on buses and vans, it was put on a boat and floated away from demonstrators, and the torch relay was eventually cut short and the closing ceremony canceled.

Additionally one torch bearer, Majora Carter, pulled out a Tibetan flag and was promptly roughed up by Chinese security forces – the infamous People’s Armed Police.

“The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke,” Majora Carter told the AP. “They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street.”

There were other reports of PAP physically harassing protesters, an offense to American sensibilities and sovereignty, courtesy of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. But what would have happened to Carter and other protesters if this had been part of the Olympic torch relay in Tibet? They’d be beaten or killed, according to the TAR’s governor.

In China, government officials warned against disruption of the relay as the torch reaches Tibet. “If someone dares to sabotage the torch relay in Tibet and its scaling of Mount Everest, we will seriously punish him and will not be soft handed,” said Qiangba Puncog, governor of the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

It’s hard to imagine a more disgusting response to peaceful protest. But the message is clear, China will murder Tibetans who mar their torch relay with dissent. While they weren’t allowed to do it San Francisco, there will be no restrictions back in Tibet.