Al-Qalam 
Why is the printed media inter-alia, mute about the repression in China? Is it because the government of that country has been bailing out a financially bankrupt government whose public officials have pilfered the fiscus and hence deafness, eyeless and voicelessness?
Against this there have been disturbing things happening in China of late. Hundreds of Thousands of Uighur Muslims have been sent to concentration camps in the province of Xinjiang. Muslims and other intellectuals have been persecuted Wait, there’s more! Teachers in the southern port city, I forgot its name, have been forced to hand over their passports, a move that curtails their movements whilst a Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo has apparently been barred from travelling abroad to seek medical treatment. Granted that China may have worked class medical facilities but this is a deliberate restriction on that country’s harshest of critics.
China isn’t the only one escaping our media scrutiny. I’m thinking here about India and its lockdown of Kashmir and the repression that this newspaper hasn’t reported on. Why? Is our association with BRICS reduced a government to the role of an eunuch?
Silence is just as culpable to the conduct that these two governments stand accused of. Where is that courageous media which during the dark days of apartheid valiantly fought a repressive regime even though media practitioners were killed by executioners of the apartheid government.
I’m disappointed that the printed media which sees the need to criticise the ANC will not call out the repressions in China and India.
Saber Jhazbhay
Lawyer: Human rights, Constitutional lawyer
Durban
