Word: dissenter
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...While some of the more stringent measures will likely be lifted once the anniversary is over, some commentators believe that a new era of restriction on all forms of political dissent is here to stay. "It all started long before the Olympics," explains a diplomat. "The authorities jailed or intimidated into silence almost all independent voices, and kept it that way. It gets worse around the time of 'sensitive' anniversaries like June 4 or when the National People's Congress is held, but basically it's a question of degree." (Read "Hong Kong Dissidents Get Organized...
...California back into the gay-marriage fight, which has considerably broadened in the months since Prop. 8 passed. States like Vermont and Maine have embraced gay marriage, and New York is among others that may do so soon. And in a telling bit of irony, Moreno began his dissent by quoting not from his own court's historic 2008 opinion, but from one issued earlier this year in Iowa. "The 'absolute equality of all' persons before the law [is] 'the very foundation principle of our government,'" he wrote...
...while allowing - sometimes even encouraging - local bishops to be more aggressive in challenging political leaders. In Italy, for instance, both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have given communion to pro-choice politicians while letting Italian church leaders take the role of lecturing those Catholics on their dissent from church teaching. And this is particularly true of the Vatican's relationships with foreign leaders, whom the Pope views as fellow heads of state. Some observers have interpreted Cardinal George's Oval Office meeting with Obama on St. Patrick's Day to talk about abortion as an emissary visit...
...Such outspokenness is highly unusual in a nation where dissent usually lands individuals in detention. One salutary example is Tan Zuoren, a 55-year-old environmentalist and writer who was compiling his own parallel list of dead students. On March 28, he was detained by police in his native city of Chengdu in Sichuan province and hasn't been heard of since. About 20 of Ai's volunteers have faced temporary detention and police harassment as they crisscrossed the quake zone interviewing parents and relatives of the dead, according to Ai, and two have been beaten. The volunteers "are constantly...
...Still, Ai is keenly aware of the boundaries of dissent. When asked whether such an office would also look into the alleged abuses in Tibet and the Muslim region of Xinjiang, he acknowledges that that would be "suicidal." In the China of the next decade and further down the road, democracy won't be nearly as important as freedom of information, the artist concludes. "We need a scientific system more than a democratic one. The Communist Party can be in power for the next 100 years, but we have to question them, investigate them ... It doesn't matter as long...