Re: China -political prisoner
I went on a tour of China in November and we were obviously only shown and told those things which had been given the okay by the powers that be. I can see that I personally would hate to live there - the huge numbers of people; the different classifications (and rights) of/for people; pollution; etc etc. All the things which make me uncomfortable because I haven't been brought up with them. Some of the places I visited were horrible and I saw some pretty rough housing, but other places were great! Super-clean, super-big, modern apartments, office buildings, massive train stations, airports, 4 or 5-way highways. The only Chinese I met were our guides who were lovely people, but one in particular was a bit too indoctrinated. They both expressed a wish to visit the UK in the near future and appear to be free to do so.
In the West, we seem to easily condemn countries we don't understand. China has SO MANY people, it CANNOT be a democracy - frightening I know - but I fear that will creep into our so-called democracy too.
The newspaper article refers to someone a bit like Julian Assange - who has also been illegally imprisoned and should be immediately released. If you feel strongly about Ilham Tohti, I'm sure there are groups you can join which are petitioning for his release.