The Governance Of Democracy Must Win, Autocracy Must Die

Originally Published March 20, 2011; Last Updated October 12, 2012; Last Republished October 12, 2011:

Chinese lawyer for dissident Chen Wei, quoting his client's response after listening to a "judge" sentence him to nine years in prison for inciting subversion of the state:

"The governance of democracy must win, autocracy must die"--Liang Xiaojun quoting Chen Wei--

Chen was imprisoned for writing a series of essays in dissent. His proforma two-hour "dissident trial" occurred after being held incommunicado, impeding his counsel, and harassing his wife and other Chinese supporters (de rigueur treatment for China’s courageous dissidents and their supporters)¹.

Web: 

RFA, Dissident, Rights Lawyer Sentenced
CECC, Authorities Sentence Chen Wei to 9 Years for Posting Pro-Democracy Essays and CECC, Chen Wei Imprisonment Details
独立中文笔会, 陈卫：我与九二民运 and 陈卫

Other Chinese Dissidents:

UPDATED 10/12/2012 NYT, New Chinese Nobel Laureate Calls for Fellow Nobel Winner’s Freedom and CSM, Nobel Laureate for literature Mo Yan urges China dissident Liu Xiaobo's freedom Perhaps Liu Xiaobo and Mo Yan can concurrently travel to the Swedish Academy?

UPDATED 06/03/2012 BBC, US urges China to free Tiananmen Square activists [dissidents] 

UPDATED 05/02/2012 WP, Bob Fu, once obscure crusader of rights in china is now famous for helping dissident Chen-Guangcheng and BBC, China dissident Chen Guangcheng 'in US embassy'

UPDATED 03/20/2012 NYT, Activist [Liu Ping] Said to Be Missing in China

UPDATED 02/25/2012 NYT, From Virginia Suburb, a Dissident Chinese Writer Continues His Mission

UPDATED 01/03/2012 NYT, China Set to Punish Another Human Rights Activist 

Other Non-Chinese Dissidents:

UPDATED 04/23/2012 UPI Photos, Bahraini anti-government protesters at Formula One

Blog: Chen Wei Sentenced to 9 Years for Online Essays (Updated)

-----notes-----

1. It seems useful to note that by definition any nation operating a given civil society structure, however primitive or advanced will always justify their structure and reflexively use force, coercion, and suppression to maintain it.

It does not matter whether it's China justifying imprisoning Charter 08 authors and signatories; United States justifying Guantanamo, peremptory attack, or indefinite detention of inimical speech (aka material support); Russia justifying irregular parliamentary elections or reciprocally rigged elects for the presidency and prime minister; Egypt justifying the hyena-like brutality inflicted on straggling protesters...just go down the list, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain...

Not true you adamantly assert! Fair enough, make your own null list of all nation's civil society structures that seek, encourage or embrace dissidents--your list, at best will include numerous nations that sanctimonious assert their civil society structure is better than another!

But, that begs the question, how does the nation know? It knows when dissidents tell them!

Our nation can do much better than routinely parrot calls for the incorporation of first amendment rights into the Universal Human Rights Declaration (although necessary). Our nation can take the steps to ensure that our civil society structure is entirely consensual and reflexively responsive to dissidents (hint: you'll need to abandon the use of force, coercion, and suppression).