China sentences elderly women to “reeducation through labour” for asking for permission to protest
[Hat tip: The Pub Philosopher]
Lindsey Hilsum, reporting for Channel 4 News:
I’m trying to put myself in the mind of the official from the Beijing Municipal Government who decided to send 79-year-old Mrs Wu and her 77-year-old neighbour Mrs Wang to the labour camp.
Maybe it was the way they wielded their walking sticks which made him decide they were “disturbing public order”.
The two women have applied five times for permission to protest in the designated Olympic Protest Zones; when they refused to give up, they were sentenced to one year’s “re-education through labour”.