MY TOP 5 DICTATORS

With all this attention on the North Korea, and Zimbabwe in recent times, current events news has ignored the world's biggest dictatorship in existence, China. We are too keen for cheap imports and limitless potential for exports to criticise the oppressive one party state. Since Hu Jintao and the Chinese Communist Party won the right to host the Olympics by promising to improve human rights Hu has tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and religion. Repressian of Tibetians and other minorities has increased dramatically. Political and religious dissidents can be held in “ Re-education Through Labor” camps for up to four years without trial. 

Another dictator that has not received as much press in New Zealand as he deserves is the Sudanese leader, al-Bashir. the The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his contributions to the tragedy in Darfur. The ICC charged him with “ murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing, and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property.” Bashir’s military campaign has been accused of driving 2.7 million people from their homes. 

A further ignored dictatorship (thanks to their vast wealth and oil reserves) is the monarchy of Saudi Arabia. Despite King Abdullah’s talk of reform, Saudi women still need permission from male guardians to work, study, travel, marry, or even obtain an ID card. 

Poor old Turkmenistan. While the good news is that since he took power two years ago, Berdymuhammedov has eliminated many of the more ridiculous aspects of the personality cult of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, such as renaming the months after himself and his mother, the bad news is that it missed out on being the setting of the Borat movie. Oh, and Berdymuhammedov has kept most of Niyazov’s repressive in place. Political prisoners remain behind bars, all media is controlled by the government, opposition parties are not allowed, and the practice of religion is restricted. 

And to round it off, the little known country of Eritrea's little known dictator Isayas Afewerki announced in May 2008 that elections would be postponed for "three or four decades" or longer because they "polarize society." All forms of media are controlled by the government.