this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
79 points (97.6% liked)
US News
2040 readers
18 users here now
News from within the empire - From a leftist perspective
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not to say it's a good thing that US police are busting up peaceful protests
But it's also relevant, how many of those US protestors were never seen again after they got arrested for bullshit reasons?
How many protestors dissapeared in Hong Kong after being arrested for bullshit reasons?
About 2,300 people have been arrested in the US this week.
About 10,000 people were arrested in the months of unrest in Hong Kong -- so the rate of arrest per unit time is much lower than in the US. On the other hand, three years later, about 7,200 were still in custody without charges yet being brought. (More statistics in the link) We can quibble about whether you want to call that, or someone getting renditioned back to the mainland, "disappeared," but I would define it as much worse than someone getting tackled or gassed in the US and then released a couple days later with either a misdemeanor or nothing but their injuries.
This isn't some whataboutism to excuse the US response; the US police do some fucked up things to people who try to protest their country's barbaric global policies and this week was more of the same. And they seem to be experimenting with ludicrously overcharging protestors, moving slightly in the direction of the system China uses, although still well short of it.
But comparing all of that unfavorably to what China does to people who protest is pretty silly IMO.
Thanks