China does battle with Wikileaks over Tibet
Jason Locke - April 24th, 2008Wikileaks, a Web site where classified, confidential and secret information can be uploaded anonymously, has made its presence felt on the situation in Tibet. Dozens of photos and videos of the protests and the Chinese government’s brutal response have been posted on the site.
The most telling pictures are those of protestors and monks who have been killed. They aren’t for the faint-hearted. They aren’t pretty. They are real. Take note of how many bullet wounds pepper the chests of dead monks. Either the Chinese army is made up of crack shots, or these people were executed in the streets. Speculation on my part? Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong, and I feel more justified in saying that the longer the Chinese media blackout on the situation continues.
Wikileaks also has videos from various news organizations that filmed the various acts of mayhem that have racked Lhasa over the last few weeks. Most of these videos come from the BBC and show Chinese censors shutting off the BBC’s Chinese station whenever the Tibetan crisis is mentioned, all while the Chinese government channel ignores the entire situation.
The less physical, less violent, but far more important tragedy that sits on top of a pile of atrocity is that Wikileaks is banned in China, and the people who need to see the photos, the videos, the eyewitness accounts the most aren’t seeing them at all.
Wikileaks has provided the world a glimpse of a violent and deteriorating situation, but the billion people of China probably have less of a clue about what’s happening in their own country than the rest of the world. Still, the Web site has proved its worth once again. Freedom of information is an important and often forgotten tenant of a good democratic system of government, and Wikileaks provides an outlet for massive amounts of material that would otherwise not be seen by anyone.
Now, anyone with a computer is a potential freedom fighter. A mujahideen of the Internet.
Anyone with information that is potentially important to the public discourse (secret or not) becomes an enlightener, and their anonymity is protected by a little Web site that can, and will, win an uphill battle against censorship and legal meddling.
The anonymous postings on the site may sound dubious, but it’s the only source of information about Tibet that is out there, other than the vague and quick ramblings of cable news.
Given the choice, I choose Wikileaks.