While we see the rise of a fascist state in Iran, we are that the Chinese still have few political rights.

Dozens of prominent Chinese academics have signed a petition calling for the release of veteran political activist Liu Xiaobo.

They say his arrest shows that no one in China has the right to publicly express their opinions.

Mr Liu was formally arrested on Tuesday – more than six months after he was detained by the authorities.

He has been charged with inciting subversion by spreading rumours and defaming the government.

Mr Liu, who is a writer, has spent more than two decades pushing for political reforms in China.

After this execution, China has a long way to go on the huma rights front:

Chinese officials have secretly executed a demonstrator who took part in a massive protest in 2004 against a hydro-electric dam in the south-western province of Sichuan, lawyers and family members said yesterday.

In a grim postscript to the summer of rural unrest that overtook China two years ago, Chen Tao was executed for “deliberately killing” a riot policeman during the demonstration, when 100,000 farmers staged a sit-in against the building of the 186-metre-high Pubugou dam on the Dadu river in Hanyuan county. The dam was set to flood thousands of people out of their homes and there were complaints that compensation was inadequate.

– that the sentence for a 28-year-old operator of porn sites in China.