Beijing Olympic Watch: Turn In Your Application to Protest and Get a Free Trip to a Labor Camp!

Last time I had complained that no applications for licensed protest had been approved by Chinese authorities.

Now the whole mess of free expression takes a turn. Two elderly women applied to protest, and not only did they not get approval -- they get sentenced to a labor camp too. What a bargain. Blurb:

Two women in their late 70s have been sentenced to a year of "re-education through labor" after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights advocates.

The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made five visits to the police this month in an effort to obtain permission to protest what they contended was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in Beijing. During their final visit, on Monday, Public Security officials informed them that they had been given administrative sentences for "disturbing the public order," according to Li Xuehui, Wu's son.

. . . The repeat arrests and detentions of aspiring protesters who appeared to follow official procedures for registering their complaints are perhaps the most striking example of how the Olympics have so far failed to force China to relax political controls, even for the short duration of the games.