Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 14, 2011

China?s ruling Communist Party recently proposed revisions in its criminal code that would permit the secret detention of suspects for as much as six months. As the McClatchy News Service reports, ?Details of the detentions could be kept secret if authorities deem that informing families might `hinder? their investigation. In other words, it would be lawful to make people disappear.?

These trends are perceived as ominous indications that China ? which has become an economic dynamo ? was relapsing into authoritarian tyranny. What is truly ominous, however, is the fact that China?s rulers appear to be taking their cues from Washington, which has leap-frogged the Chinese Communist Party with respect to institutionalized abuse of criminal suspects and enemies of the State.

The use of secret search warrants, secret evidence, and even secret assassination lists has become routine in this supposedly free country. The government claims it has the power to imprison terrorist suspects even after acquittal. Torture has also been embraced as an accepted mode of interrogation and summary punishment.

There was a time, not long ago, when freedom seekers in China and other nations admired America?s example. Today they have reason to fear the example being set by the corrupt and lawless people who presume to rule us.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.