There are a lot of people – of many nationalities – who would like us to forget the essential nature of China’s one-party dictatorship. We owe something to the Associated Press, for a report that works against forgetting:

BEIJING (AP) – Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday. Police later squelched a pro-Tibet demonstration.
The women were still at home three days after being officially notified they would have to serve a yearlong term of reeducation through labor, but were under surveillance by a government-backed neighborhood group, said Li Xuehui, the son of one of the women.
Li said no cause was given for the order to imprison his 79-year-old mother, Wu Dianyuan, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77.
“Wang Xiuying is almost blind and disabled. What sort of reeducation through labor can she serve?”

For the rest of the report, go here. It gets no better.

Happy Olympics! And bust them rocks, Grannies!