The death of democracy advocate, Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo has made the Chinese government extremely nervous. It is amazing to see the government of a supposedly superpower to be so afraid of a man that it had put in prison for years, even after his death. A reflection of this governmental paranoia is its intensified internet censorship, now being pushed to the point of ridiculousness.
The day after Liu Xiaobo’s death, people suddenly discovered that they were no longer able to post anything containing the English word “script”. For example, if you mention “java script” in your article, your attempt to post your article online will fail with an error message “Please do not post anything that is against the law”. People were puzzled at first. Then they realised that the English word “script” contains the letters “rip” which is an acronym for the English phrase “rest in peace”. They had to write “java scriipt” in order to post their articles.
The Chinese phrase 我没有敌人, which translates to “I have no enemy”, is also banned. If you happen to say “I have no enemy” in any of your posts, you will not be able to post them and get the error message that you are breaking the Chinese law. This is because Liu Xiaobo wrote an essay titled “I have no enemy”. He said that the people who defended the regime, who carried out the crackdown, even those who tortured him, were not his enemies. That democracy will only win when we treat even those who are against us as fellow human beings.
Obviously this is an idea that scares the Chinese government to death.