The dust hasn’t settled after yesterday’s election, and won’t for a few days. The Democrats took the House, the Republicans increased their majority in the Senate, and in due course we’ll know the practical significance. Although many observers rightly lament the acrimony of our politics, it is worth taking a moment to give thanks that we live in a nation in which criticizing those in authority doesn’t land you in jail or in the grave.
One of the year’s most unsettling stories is that of Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi writer was a sharp critic of the Riyadh government and last year fled the country for fear of retaliation. He stepped inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul last month and was murdered by government thugs. He’s far from the only Saudi dissident to be killed or imprisoned. Raif Badawi, proprietor of the website Free Saudi Liberals, was arrested in 2012 for “insulting Islam”—read insulting the Saudi Arabian government—and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. He languishes in prison in extremely poor health.
In Ukraine, anti-corruption activist Kateryna Handziuk died on Sunday from wounds sustained when an attacker dumped a liter of sulfuric acid on her head. That was her reward for challenging some of the most powerful politicians in Kiev. Many other protesters in Ukraine have been harassed, intimidated, and assaulted.
In Iran, the regime this week convicted 24 protesters of, according to Human Rights Watch, “participating in a protest without a permit.” Hundreds of others suffer in prison for no other offense than expressing their dissatisfaction with a theocratic government.
In cities across Russia, more than 1,000 people were arrested in September for protesting the government’s decision to increase workers’ retirement age. Many were beaten by police. Just a few months before, in May, about 1,600 were arrested for protesting Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president for the fourth time.
In China, thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—lie in prison simply for criticizing the government. Let’s remember just one today: Qin Yougmin. He was sentenced to prison this summer for “subversion against the state.” A steelworker turned dissident journalist, he has been in and out of prison all his life because he won’t stop writing and publishing about the Chinese government’s abuse of its citizens. He was arrested in 1981 and spent eight years in prison. He was arrested in 1993 and spent two years in a reeducation camp (where he was brutally beaten). He was arrested in 1998 and spent 12 years in prison. If he manages to serve out his latest sentence, he’ll be 74.
We might easily go on, adding Indonesia and Pakistan and Singapore and even some Western nations in which “blasphemy” laws threaten to send people to jail for “disparaging” Islam. The point is not simply to criticize these other countries, but to remind us all of a crucial truth: In America, you may say what you like about the government and have no fear of a knock at your door. For all the ills of polarization and political animosity, it’s a pretty great place to live.
