Shame-nesty International: Or, "why NGOs don't do themselves any favors"

I agree. It's worse than bad. It's terrible. Today we'll call them Sham-nasty. You were right not to post it. But then you did! Well, yes, just to show just how bad it is.

Ironically, I actually started off calling this entry Shamnesty International (if you look at the file name, you will see that is is still called this), but I decided against it as it implied that the article was about fackery or fraud, when it is just about a really really bad video that they should be ashamed of.

On the subject of the video, yes, I chose to include it. I felt that to criticize it without showing it would make me as bad as Beijing which regularly speaks out against things while denying people the opportunity to see things fo rthemselves and to make up their own minds.

Well, it seemed to me that the message is kept very simple, but maybe still too complicated for you? What do you expect? That the Chinese allow camera teams into the prisons so Amnesty can show what they are doing? Please if you can get videos, photos or testimonies, you are more then welcome to share them, but as you may know, access to Tibet is nearly impossible at the moment. It is a bit overly simple just to criticize them for trying something alternative.

I can't see the video :( I've downloaded the latest flash but no luck. Even tried a proxy, and nothing. I can picture what it's like, but I wish I could see it for myself. I think that's ACB's whole point, anyway, that I shouldn't take ANYONE's word for it, but see it for myself.

So I'm going to just hold judgement on the whole Amnesty International thing until I see the video first hand. - Angry Foreign Poster

Rudy, Having no access to the truth is no excuse to fabricating or fantasizing about the "truth". Trying sth alternative is ok, but making things up or jumping to conclusions is not. As far as I know, TAR has been open to Chinese tourists since May 1. Selected overseas media now have limited access.

Hi ACB. I'm in New York. I like your blog. I know Americans only see a little bit of the real situation and China is a getting a bad rap. But I think I can explain the American anger of China's treatment of the Tibetan protesters. We did see images of monks rioting. We know that they started it, and some were out to physically harm Chinese people as well as property. It was the massive response that alarmed us. We heard about people getting shot on the spot. Then hundreds, maybe thousands were rounded up. Some protesters there have gotten years of prison. It's extreme. Here, even with violent protests, such harsh response isn't allowed. It's happened that protesters here have been killed by police/army but it's rare. People go to jail here--if they've caused harm they could go for a long time, but to just get arrested at a protest, they spend one night there.

People here know the Olympics have nothing to do with the riots and Tibet. They feel the only way they can protest the Chinese government's repression of Tibet (and other minorities in other provinces such as Uighur) is by protesting the Olympics. There's a long history of politics getting wound up in the Olympics. People here also are angry over U.S. corporate sponshorship of the Games because they feel the money is going to the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama is very popular here.

Please don't think that most people who protest are preoccupied with China--protesters here tend to go to a lot of protests about many different causes. They usually don't have a strong grasp of the details of any one thing, but they have a strong sense of justice and wanting to change things. Please don't think they're bad people. They're out protesting Bush, the Iraq War, and other bad things. They aren't anti-China, they just think the government is repressive. The news does report on how people in China feel about them--your blog for example. I'm half-Chinese and have relatives in China and I've lived there. I do see you point of view and I'm hoping that you can see ours.

Read these and you will know the Tibetan side of the story....there is also a report on torture in China by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowark. U can find the report if you search for it on www.ohchr.org

http://tchrd.org/publications/topical_reports/torture/torture.pdf http://tchrd.org/press/2008/pr20080505.html http://tchrd.org/press/2008/pr20080502.html http://tchrd.org/press/2008/pr20080409.html

Rudy:

"it seemed to me that the message is kept very simple"

Leaving out the detail isn't quite the same thing as keeping it simple.

"What do you expect? That the Chinese allow camera teams into the prisons so Amnesty can show what they are doing?"

Enough footage has been smuggled out to meet Amnesty's needs. Enough people have been smuggled out, too. Equally, it's not just the prisons where this goes on. Remember a while back when that foreign hiker in Nepal filmed a Mainland sniper picking off refuges on the side of a mountain.

"Please if you can get videos, photos or testimonies, you are more then welcome to share them"

Visit your local Tibetan community center. They will share their stories with you first hand.

"access to Tibet is nearly impossible at the moment."

The Han occupation is decades old. Last years photos are just as much evidence as photos from last week would be.

"It is a bit overly simple just to criticize them for trying something alternative."

One of the biggest problems with this is that they are not trying something "alternative" they are trying something intellectually dishonest. Amnesty are banking on the fact that if they repeat "Tibet" and "Olympics" enough in the same sentence people will mentally form links that aren't there because people don't know enough about either to mentally separate them.

It's like repeating "Homosexual" and "Pedophile" in the same sentence, or touring the country and making speeches where ever other phrase includes the words "Iraq" and "9/11". If you keep it up for long enough people will start to believe that homesexuals are child abusers, or that Saddam Husein was involved in 9/11.

I just saw the video for the first time, and I like it. It just says that the Chinese government organizes and celebrates the Olympic Games in the name of harmony while at the same time it tortures and harasses people only for standing up for human rights in China (who are the REAL patriots, if you ask me). There is absolutely nothing specific about the Tibet conflict. It doesn't make a difference between tortured Hans and tortured Tibetans. Or do you want to say that stuffed pig - or whatever it is - looks like a Tibetan?

Man, it is a TV spot, not a documentary! It's only goal is to attract people to the issue. There is no place for facts or education or explanation. How can you expect to put this into a 40 second spot? If you want this I'm afraid you have to read the reports of Amnesty.

And I think it is mainly aimed for westerners, to make them not forget during the Olympic events that the nice impressive buildings and celebrations are build on a base of suffer and torture. It adresses their bad conscience.

"Remember a while back when that foreign hiker in Nepal filmed a Mainland sniper picking off refuges on the side of a mountain."

A quick internet search didn't turn up any such reports, only reports of a sniper guard existing. Can you post some link to this?

Chris:

Here's your link. I don't do sound on my PC, so I can't vouch for the commentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgadUdNcRZU&feature=related

I have a feeling that ACB isn't too sure of the provenance either, or we would have discussed this before.

"the Chinese government organizes and celebrates the Olympic Games in the name of harmony while at the same time it tortures and harasses people only for standing up for human rights in China"

The UK government has the games next, and it's complicit in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and all of those prisoner abuse scandals. I await Amnesty internationals video linking the UK to the torture of Iraqis.

"There is absolutely nothing specific about the Tibet conflict."

Don't you mean occupation?

"It doesn't make a difference between tortured Hans and tortured Tibetans."

Since the guy at the beginning is holding up a banner about Tibet, the odds are that he's Tibetan.

"do you want to say that stuffed pig - or whatever it is - looks like a Tibetan?"

Why would a Han hold up a placard about torture in Tibet?

"It's only goal is to attract people to the issue"

That's what the hyperlink should do. The video should aim to educate them.

"there is no place for facts or education or explanation"

So, facts don't matter, just so long as Amnesty gets it's subscriptions up?

"How can you expect to put this into a 40 second spot?"

Give me a 40 second spot and I could give you a montage that demonstrate how all of the "improvements" that Beijing bands about in order to justify the occupation of Tibet apply primarily to Han migrants, and not to the native people. To me, that would be 40 seconds better spent than on Amnesty's exercise in trivialization.

"the nice impressive buildings and celebrations are build on a base of suffer and torture"

Ah, so now we get down to it. Amnesty and the like have already gotten to you. You're making mental links that don't exist because you've heard people reciting "torture" and "Olympics" in the same sentence. Could you please back up your last sentence with an actual example of how the games are built on a base of suffering and torture? While Beijing has done some pretty bad things in relation to the Olympics (All of those eminent domain seizures, for example), the games are not based on any such thing. The games and the torture are happening at the same time, but only a fraction of the cases are even remotely related. Most of the suffering and torture would happen without the games, and vice versa.

"it is mainly aimed for westerners"

You think?

dave zimmerman:

I'm 100% certain of the provenance. I believe that it is genuine and shows exactly what it appears to show. A column of refugees being fired on by a sniper in the pay of Beijing. Whether or not they are Han I can't say for certain. But the odds are in favor of such a presumption, though it doesn't really matter as their action is representative of Beijing, not the wider Han people.

I love it when we agree on something, but it usually turns out that when I'm susceptible to doubt, you are certain, and when I'm certain...

It seems that you are saying that the culprits were mountaineers themselves, rather than Han. I'll buy that. While I do know of herbal formulas that PLA issues its troops in TAR, I don't think that PLA would be suitable for mountain patrols; mountain folk (posssibly even Tibetan collaborators) are much more suitable, acclimatized and knowledable . So, if these are the people involved, how is it that the fortuitous (as in, it could only happen in Charles Dickens novel) arrival of a Roumanian climbing team was not noticed by the patrol? From what I have heard about ambushes (never been on either end of one) , if they are set up by pros, the locations is thoroughly cased before the deed is done.

If your apply the same critical judgement that should have been applied by the makers of the advertisement in question, you get the impression of a much more inflammatory image with more seeming credibility. But my opinion is that PR folks have to eat, too, and true belivers of any stripe will do anything for a cause