The hope that China will become more democratic is being dashed. If China carries out a plan which is being discussed quite seriously, everyone in China would be rated. You would get points for different aspects of the way you live and interact socially. They have taken the system the banks use to calculate our credit scores and they seem to have applied it much more broadly. Part of the calculation will have to do with how you operate within the political system in China. Along with this it is thought financial, social and legal credits will be compiled. Why would a country take things this far? This will give them almost total governmental control over people’s lives. Remember how communism was supposed to make everyone equal? It make some people more equal than others and those in the party enjoyed perks the ordinary people could never achieve. I have no doubt this will also happen if this new system is ever enacted. It will affect every part of someone’s life. Want to get a loan and you have a low social score? You can forget it. This might even affect the most basic of services such as medical. This is just another example of a government going too far. One thing we can almost assure is the fact some of the data will be wrong and this will have a profound effect on those people with erroneous data.

When we look at the world we find a lot of countries which have very strict controls over their citizens. A list of the ten most controlling countries was compiled in 2012 by CPJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists. Here is the list:
Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Belarus.
Notice China is not on the list yet, but they have been listed as a runner-up as was Turkmenistan, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Sudan and Azerbaijan. I was surprised to see North Korea was not number one. If we look at Eritrea we find only state news media are allowed to operate in that country and they are under the complete direction of the Information Minister. If you are a reporter and send out a story from Eritrea and are caught, you are sent to jail. There is no court or trial. You are held for an extended period of time and not allowed access to a lawyer or your family and friends. From what I have heard the jails there are not the most pleasant places to be in. There is access to the internet, but if you are a provider you have to connect through the government operated EriTel and Internet access is affordable for only a very few.

I think most of us are familiar with how North Korea works. You starve while carrying out homage to the supreme leader Kim Jong-un. The man kills people on a whim and it is known he killed his uncle in a very brutal way by tying him to a target and using an anti-aircraft gun to blow him to pieces, while forcing many of his citizens to watch. Everything he does has to be congratulated, because no one dares to express a discerning opinion since they know they will be made an example of and most likely killed in the most brutal way. They also know Kim would not hesitate to kill their family if they disagree with him. Some believe there may be insanity in Kim Jong-un’s family and people have noticed a woman who many though was his girlfriend or his wife is no longer seen at his side and they wonder what could have happened to her. Kim was raised from an early age to be the leader of the country and many of his problems may relate to how he was trained. Many times he has expressed a desire to nuke the United States and now that he is building and testing rockets which get more capable every year he is becoming a real threat to this country.

When we look at the list we have to realize is was compiled from a reporter’s point of view, but it just so happens countries which treat reporters badly are the same ones which treat their citizens badly. It stands to reason when you think about it. The reason these places are scared to let reporters print what is really happening is it stirs up the emotions of their citizens when we are talking about countries with no or very little freedom. These country’s leaders are afraid they will be overthrown and in some cases where religious leaders are running countries, some of the “religious” don’t want change, but usually the majority of the citizens would welcome more freedom. In the case of a country like Iran, which has been ruled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since 1989, I am sure a lot of women would welcome his downfall as women are treated as second class citizens and along with these women we hear whispers from the general population, they would love to have more freedom. You don’t want to be a reporter in Iran as they have banned many publications and thrown journalists in jail where they suffer physical abuse, solitary confinement, torture and having their families harassed to keep them quiet. Probably the most hated journalist in Iran is an American journalist.

One place we don’t hear a lot about, but is never the less was subject to extreme censorship and human rights violations is Uzbekistan. Shavkat Mirziyhoyev is the President of Uzbekistan, he has only been in office since September 8, 2016. The media remains tightly controlled, but the government has ended censorship. Torture is routinely used by the police, but the government has started to bring police who use torture to trial. It seems this country is making progress in the right direction, but the handling of suspects of Islamic extremism has upset some in the west. About 6,000 suspected members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist Islamic group have been arrested over the years and many have died in prison. One of the most famous events occurred in 2005 when hundreds of suspected Islamic extremists were killed by police in the city of Andijan.

Some countries are headed more toward democracy while others more toward dictatorships. When human rights start to disappear, you know countries are in trouble. We have lost some rights in our own country and we have to be vigilant to curb this trend. We can’t let excuses such as “it is for our protection” be used to implement draconian laws.