KRAKOW, Poland — Intolerant governments across the globe are "slowly crushing" activist and advocacy groups that play an essential role in the development of democracy, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday.Does this mean Clinton will be pushing our government for an independent probe of the G20 police response? Will she condemn government attacks on critical NGOs in Israel and Canada?
She cited a broad range of countries where "the walls are closing in" on civic organizations such as unions, religious groups, rights advocates and other nongovernmental organizations that press for social change and shine a light on governments' shortcomings.
Among those she named were Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Venezuela, China and Russia.
"Some of the countries engaging in these behaviors still claim to be democracies," Clinton said at an international conference on the promotion of democracy and human rights. "Democracies don't fear their own people. They recognize that citizens must be free to come together, to advocate and agitate."
Will she be publicly asking her own country's police force to renounce tactics like 'kettling' or other elements of the Miami model?
Or is this just a display of hypocrisy and calculation, referencing countries that are either international competitors or compliant client states that the US could administer more control over if they wished?
2 comments:
Here's the thing: Canadians have proven to Harper and other jack-boot thugs that we don't want our democracy. In fact, we don't deserve it. Some people are fighting for it, but a few thousand people out of millions isn't a wave. It's a blip.
People will be jailed for years for jaywalking in this country and everyone around us will say we had it coming because we should use crosswalks.
It's over. They've won.
I don't think it's quite hopeless yet but we definitely have work to do.
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