Tan Zuoren will spend the next five years in a Chinese state jail. The official charge is subversion but his lawyer, human-rights groups, and everyone else acquainted with his case say the real reason was that Tan dared question the government’s responsibility for the enormous human toll exacted by the devastating Sichuan earthquake of May 2008, in particular the collapse of school buildings. That 7.9-magnitude quake killed more than 90,000 including some 6,000 children trapped when their shoddily-constructed schools fell down on them. (Those figures are considered conservative estimates.) Tan’s conviction is one in a recent string of supposed anti-government revolutionaries being put behind bars by the Chinese government. When you bemoan the state of America’s schools, thank your lucky stars you’re on this side of the Pacific where at least you have the right to do so.
“Beijing Sentences Activist Who Probed School Collapses,” by Sky Canaves, Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2010