Top 100 beauties in the world!
Gallery: Who is the most beautiful one?
If you like autumn, put your hands in the air!
Fan Bingbing's "Queen style" in new play
Lingerie show at 2014 Miss China
J-10 fighters show aerobatic stunts in smog-free sky
Charming contestants of Shanghai Int’l Model Contest
Most amazing chi-pao beauties
7 deadly animal attacks
Russia to launch 70 Proton rockets by 2020: officialNo sooner had Finnigan and Buerk spoken out, than they found that they, too, were being hounded by the progressive mob. The focus shifted ever so slightly from ‘Evans the rapist’ to ‘Evans and his friends the rape apologists’.
In order to spare themselves and save their careers, both Finnigan and Buerk were forced into humiliating acts of public apology, where they confessed to their ‘wrong-thinking’, issued the proper ritual condemnations of Evans, and begged to be pardoned. This is what brought to my mind the link with Deng Rong’s book.
There is an obvious lesson here about how quickly calls for ‘freedom of speech’ can be transformed into calls for ‘freedom of speech for those who agree with me’. Would I dare to write this article if I was a journalist working in Britain? Would any mainstream media outlet publish it? They are happy to talk at great length about events in Hong Kong; events in Parliament Square are swept discreetly under the carpet. ‘Freedom of speech’ is a right that requires careful management by those who control the megaphone.
The Guardian newspaper went out of its way to prove the truth of this aphorism. On Sunday 16th one of its journalists, Barbara Ellen, visited the Evans story for the second time in its ‘public discussion’ section, titled “Comment is Free – but Facts are Sacred!” I attempted to post a comment on the article. The full text of the comment is here. Within minutes my comment was removed by the censors, my posting account was permanently closed, and I was banned from any further activity on “Comment is Free – but Facts are Sacred!” Truly, freedom of speech is far too precious a gift to be wasted on people who do not hold the correct opinions…
But there is a second issue too, about the process by which groups are transformed into mobs. As I thought of the Hong Kong demonstrators, the Occupy Parliament Square protests, and the Evans case, I found myself reflecting on the students who were the vanguard of the Cultural Revolution, how gullible and unworldly they were, how easily they were led astray by malign and cynical manipulators, how quickly their idealism was transformed into arrogance, intolerance, hatred and then violence - violence that they ended up inflicting not only on their opponents, but on each other - and how the results were ten years of chaos, anarchy, and ruin in China.
![]() | ![]() |
Hot girls at motor show
Official trailer of Y-20
Photos: Xi Jinping in Fujian
Standard faces for each countries
China-made military transport aircraft gets ready
World Pole Dance Championship in China
Shocking! Photos of Chinese fighters revealed
59-year-old Liu Xiaoqing still looks stunning
In pics: PLA stages live-fire drill in NE China
Top 10 most dangerous jobs in the world
Top 10 fifth generation jet fighters in the world
Top 10 Chinese goddesses
Top 20 hottest women in the world in 2014
Top 10 pure beauties in showbiz
Top 10 world's highest-paid models 2014
The most gorgeous Chinese women
Top 10 most handsome faces in AsiaDay|Week|Month