许志永

一位来自意大利的中国研究学者Claudia Astarita就郭宝锋、许志永，及网友寄送明信片等事件撰写了一篇文章，原文发表在意大利杂志Mondo Panorama的网站上（原文链接）。以下是简单的英文翻译，包括文章大意以及部分意大利网友的留言和评论。

China: Fear and Anger towards Blogger Repression

Chinese people are scared. They fear a Government whose behavior is becoming more and more irrationally.
Two weeks ago, six bloggers have been arrested for slander because they posted or forwarded online some videos about the comments of the mother of a chinese girls who has been raped to death. Chinese police sent them to prison. One of them, Amoiist, was luckier than others because he managed to send two SOS messages through Twitter.
His friends spread this news and they suggested to start sending postcard to Amoiist in prison whose content was “Amoiist, your mama is calling you back for dinner”. In a few weeks, more than 200 postcards where sent to Amoiist, and although he did not receive any of them, Amoiist has been bailed out and now he is waiting for the process.

Postcards have been effective. It seems that the government has been afraid that this initiative could give international visibility to the case. Therefore, it was decided to bail out the most famous among the detainees.
Since that day, Chinese bloggers are trying to achieve an even bigger aim: freeing the other five guys and help Xu Zhiyong, another victim of Beijing’s irrationality.

Xu Zhiyong is a famous lawyer in China, the leader of an NGO, Gongmeng, very active in helping poors and that the Beijing government always refused to recognize as such. Indeed, Gongmeng is registered as a private enterprise, and this excuse actually helped China to arrest/abduct Xu Zhiyong.
After receiving a big donation from abroad, the Chinese lawyer has been accused of fiscal fraud because he did not pay taxes on this “donation” that, from the Chinese government point of view, could not be a donation. The day of the process, the 29th of July, Xu Zhiyong was kidnapped in his house and he never reached the court.
The first protests came from the farmers involved in the melamine milk case, as Xu Zhiyong was assisting most of them through Gongmeng. Hundred of postcards have been sent to his prison, hoping they will help to push the government to revise their decision.
What is going to happen now? Do chinese blogger have to be afraid of whatever they do? If Xu Zhiyang has been arrested, and he was not a person against the chinese government, what might happen to real dissidents?
“We have to do something. We cannot just wait and see what is going to happen.”

“We cannot wait until the day we won’t be allowed to speak any longer. If we cannot use legal procedures, what do they want us to do?”

“We need Beijing to understand that we don’t want to bow one’s head to their will.”

These are some comments I browsed on Chinese blogs, confirming that today, chinese people react to fear with anger.

Comment 1)
These are not good news, but we know that the Chinese government has already sentenced to death some of the people involved in the melamine scandal and they also kill rapists to give organs to the people who need them.
I understand that Chines police can be violent, but the same is happening all over the world.

Comment 2)
I don’t like the picture that has been associated to this post. With this kind of pictures only hate and wickedness are promoted.

Comment 3)
This is a typical repression of the Chinese regime, as it has been happening since a long time. In Italy we should be happy for the democratic government we have.

Comment 4)

referring to comment 3, made by commentator 1: I think you can’t follow what is happening because your ideas on china are wrong…probably you follow too much western propaganda against the chinese government.

Comment 5)

one professor of mine at university was used to say that the real dictatorship is not the une punishing the highest number of behaviors, rather the one that punishes without prohibiting. This creates terror, because normal people do not know how to behave in order to avoid punishments.

Comment 6)

I hope this struggle against the chinese government to promote freedom will continue. I think it’s useless to answer that the picture was not appropriate or that “Italy is better”. We should focus on this case and say that our government should do something to avoid something similar to happen again, and join chinese people in their fight for freedom.

Comment 7)
referring to comment 6, made by commentator 1: please, be quiet. Women can be raped also in Italy, and China is not fighting for freedom. They are just facing an internal struggles between two forces: one religious and one progressist. And in case you don’t know, the chinese government usually kill rapists to give their organs to the people who need them.
So please stop Reading western propaganda against China!