The disgraceful arrest of Wenyi Wang

You know, it's just not a real dictatorship until you put a dissident in jail.

On Thursday, Chinese national Wenyi Wang was arrested for heckling the president of China. She was held in jail overnight. In the morning, she was charged with "knowingly and willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening or harassing" a foreign official performing his duties.

For a thousand dollars and control of the board, guess where this happened.

Did you guess North Korea? Cuba? Russia? Venezuela? Egypt? Syria? Iran?

That's too bad. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.

It happened on the White House lawn in the United States of America.

Wenyi Wang was given press credentials by the White House press office to cover the welcoming ceremony for Chinese president Hu Jintao. At the first opportunity, she shouted at him to stop oppressing the Falun Gong, a religious group in China that opposes the communist government there. She unfurled a banner. She urged President Bush to tell Hu Jintao to stop the killing.

It took three minutes for the Secret Service to get to the woman and haul her away. Before they did, she shouted a warning to the Chinese president that his time was running out.

The United States government thinks that was a threat.

Is it a crime to tell a communist to his face that his time is running out? It's lucky Ronald Reagan is dead or this bunch would have him in handcuffs.

Wenyi Wang could face six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Let me be the first to volunteer to pay it for her. It would be a privilege.

The Bush administration could simply have said Wenyi Wang and the publication she represents will no longer receive press credentials at the White House. That would have been a perfectly appropriate response.

Instead, they are prosecuting her for being the only person at the White House with the nerve to call attention to the fact that the president of China leads a communist dictatorship that crushes dissent, censors the press, and oppresses its people.

It's a sad day when the president of the United States doesn't see anything wrong with that.


Copyright 2006

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