Opinion | Why China has little to celebrate from the Edward Snowden affair
NSA whistle-blower's civil disobedience highlights the duty of citizens to protect their rights when their governments do not
As Chinese state media praise Edward Snowden for exposing the hypocrisy of the US government, they should not miss a major lesson from the affair: domestic rights abuses can quickly cross borders today to become the subject of international outrage.
The internet has made it easier than ever for people to compare and contrast overseas rights violations with conditions in their own countries - and to start questioning whether their own governments are guilty of the same.
Yes, the broad belief that Snowden might have been able to resist extradition through Hong Kong's courts reveals just how much the Unites States' human rights standing has fallen since its "war on terror" began.
The decision on whether or not the former National Security Agency contractor should be extradited would have involved an unflattering examination of Washington's own human rights record and whether Snowden might be denied a fair trial, or even face torture, if handed over.
Sceptics need only to look at the pre-trial detention of Bradley Manning, the 25-year-old American soldier now facing court martial for passing hundreds of thousands of US intelligence files, videos and diplomatic cables in relation to America's war in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks.
The US Army private was held in solitary confinement for 11 months by his military jailers, who kept him awake from 5am to 8pm every day, and was forced to sleep naked for a week. The UN special rapporteur on torture concluded last year that such conditions amounted to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" - an international human rights violation.
