Beautiful Horizons

Useful FTool

I don't object to Eva Golinger going to Venezuela and supporting Hugo Chávez's government in Venezuela. While I disagree with her, she's certainly entitled to her opionion.

I am also entitled to mine and the linked article doesn't present her in a flattering light, but her sense of annoyance at the article is, frankly puzzling. She claims to be defending social justice, but praises the government of Aleksander Lukashenko, notwithstanding extensive reports of human rights abuses by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN (pdf file). She praises Ahmed Ahmedinejad as "gentle," while ignoring the evidence of brutal repression in his government; a government that has imprisone thosuands for the non-violent expression of their beliefs.

A friendly suggestion: if you want to be taken seriously and not just be perceived as a tool of the government, put some critical distance between yourself and the government. Supporting Chávez is one thing, but supporting the likes of Lukashenko and Ahmedinejad, frankly makes you appear to be little more than a sycophant.

Something I've Been Meaning to Blog About

Aleksander Lukashenko, the dictator president of Belarus was not merely content to yet again have himself reëlected in an election last month regarded by the Organization for Security and Coöperation in Europe (OSCE) as rife with flaws and lacking transparency, yet again, Lukashenko has had many opposition figures jailed.

Not content with merely having them jailed, including several who ran against him, his government was attempting to have the three-year-old son of Andrei Sannikov one of the opposition candidates, who has been under the care of his grandmother while his parents have both been jailed, taken from her. Apparently international pressure got to the Belarusans:

Authorities in Belarus have backed off a threat to seize custody of the 3-year-old son of an imprisoned opposition leader there, ruling that the boy’s grandmother was fit to take care of him.

The boy, Danil Sannikov, has been in the care of his grandmother since his parents were arrested along with more than 600 others for participating in a largely peaceful protest against the victory of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko in apparently fraudulent elections last month. Mr. Lukashenko was inaugurated Friday.

Within days of the arrests, the security services — still called the K.G.B. in Belarus, a former Soviet republic — ordered child welfare services to open custody proceedings. The boy’s family said the move was an attempt to put pressure on his parents, Andrei Sannikov, a former presidential candidate, and his wife, Irina Khalip, a journalist.

After the family’s plight was described in an article in The New York Times recently, the authorities in Belarus came under heavy criticism from abroad.

What sort of leader uses children as pawns against his opposition. Vile ones, admired by the usual stooges, including the one in the comments section to the linked post.