China Free Press

Chinese official urges political education for journalists

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:02:36 PST

New York, March 11, 2010—A state official responsible for media regulation said Wednesday the government should require Chinese journalists to obtain official training to report the news, according to local and international news reports. Domestic journalists already need government-issued identity cards to work in China.

Li Dongdong, deputy director of China’s General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), made the comments to a Xinhua News Agency reporter on Wednesday, shortly after a senior editor was removed from his post for co-authoring an editorial criticizing government policies.

Web 2.0 versus Control 2.0

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:59:42 PST

The fight for free access to information is being played out to an ever greater extent on the Internet. The emerging general trend is that a growing number of countries are attemptimg to tighten their control of the Net, but at the same time, increasingly inventive netizens demonstrate mutual solidarity by mobilizing when necessary.
The Internet: a space for information-sharing and mobilizing
In authoritarian countries in which the traditional media are state-controlled, the Internet offers a unique space for discussion and information-sharing, and has become an ever more important engine for protest and mobilization. The Internet is the crucible in which repressed civil societies can revive and develop.
The new media, and particularly social networks, have given populations’ collaborative tools with which they can change the social order. Young people have taken them by storm. Facebook has become the rallying point for activists prevented from demonstrating in the streets. One simple video on YouTube – Neda in Iran or the Saffron march of the monks in Burma – can help to expose government abuses to the entire world. One simple USB flashdrive can be all it takes to disseminate news – as in Cuba, where they have become the local “samizdats.”

NPC delegates, do not forget our brother, Tan Zuoren

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:47:42 PST

The gap between word and deed is often so deep in China’s political landscape that it is impossible to know where China’s leaders really stand. Premier Wen Jiabao again picked up our hopes in his recent address to the National People’s Congress (NPC), in which he talked about the importance of press and public monitoring of power. The spirit of Wen’s remarks was contradicted in dramatic fashion, however, by Hebei Governor Li Hongzhong (李鸿忠), who rebuked a Jinghua Times reporter at the NPC for asking a probing question without, as he suggested, sufficient care for the party’s propaganda discipline.

Premier Wen’s words were: “We must let the people criticize the government and monitor the government, giving full play to the supervisory role of news and public opinion, so that power is exercised in the full light of transparency!”

China - Censorship and threats after newspapers publish joint editorial about hukou

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:09:28 PST

Reporters Without Borders urges the Propaganda Department to lift the censorship imposed on a joint editorial in 13 Chinese daily newspapers calling for the elimination of the internal passport system known as the “hukou.” The press freedom organisation has learned that journalists working for news media that published the editorial have been threatened with punishment.

“Initiating a debate about the hukou on the eve of a session of the National People's Congress in Beijing was a very positive move,” Reporters Without Borders said. “But, as usual, the Communist Party's Propaganda Department reacted with censorship and repression. This insult to common sense is yet another example of the tension between Propaganda Department conservatives and pro-reform media.”

China's 'Online Tiananmen'

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:40:55 PST

Chinese netizens surf the Web at an Internet cafe in Hefei, in central China's Anhui province, Jan. 25, 2007.
HONG KONG—A former student leader from China's 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement has called current online protests against government curbs on the Internet an "online Tiananmen," saying the spirit of online activists is the same as that seen 20 years ago in Beijing.

"I have seen these online forums in China," said Feng Congde, who fled China after the People's Liberation Army (PLA) cleared the capital of protesters and hunger-strikers with tanks and machine guns on the night of June 3, 1989 and in the days that followed.

Many of China's Web users are disgruntled at the increasing failure of Internet circumvention tools to get around the Chinese government's sophisticated set of blocks and censorship filters known as the Great Firewall (GFW).

Editorial Calls for Assertion of Civil Rights in Face of Chinese Police Torture

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:29:28 PST

China’s police are again facing criticism after the latest in a string of embarrassing detainee deaths. Three top police officers in Lushan County, Henan, lost their jobs and four more officers face criminal prosecution following the death of Wang Yahui, a suspected thief who died suddenly in the county detention center on February 21, three days after being taken into custody.

A police official initially told a local television station that Wang had died after drinking some hot water during his interrogation, a claim immediately subjected to derision online. Wang’s family members demanded an autopsy after finding injuries to his chest, arms, head, and genitals, injuries that ultimately forcing police to accept responsibility for his death.

In April 2009, China’s State Council Information Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly released the “National Human Rights Action Plan (2009–2010),” which it promoted as a document guiding all government departments’ human rights work during the two-year period. In a section on guaranteeing the rights of the person, the plan makes clear that torture and illegal detention are prohibited under Chinese law and that violators are subject to criminal prosecution. Unlike elsewhere in the plan, no new concrete measures were introduced to address abuses in the criminal justice system, giving the impression that existing legislation and enforcement efforts are adequate to do the job.

Unlicensed journalists are no laughing matter, GAPP says

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:38:04 PST

Propaganda authorities are serious when it comes to ensuring that China’s annual Spring Festival Gala, broadcast on the official China Central Television, goes off without a hitch, or the merest hint of political incorrectness. The program, which reaches an estimated one billion people worldwide, is meant to be a sequin-studded display of wholesome national pride and unity.

This year, however, despite layer upon layer of censorship, officials overlooked a rather critical detail in a comedy skit by famous comedian Zhao Benshan (赵本山), which seemed to trivialize an issue on which government policy is firm.

Zhao, in his role as a simple peasant in the countryside, sits on the stoop outside his home, when two men — one with a video camera hoisted over his shoulder — come by introducing themselves as “online journalists.” They work for an imaginary Sohu.com program called “Seeking the Root of the Matter” (刨根问底). They want to interview Zhao’s character and make the interview available “to the whole world” via the Internet.

Internet censorship reaches unprecedented level

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:03:19 PST

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the Chinese government latest attempt to tighten its grip on the Internet. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced today that anyone wanting to operate a website would have to meet with regulators in person and bring identity documents.
“These new regulations represent a very disturbing step backwards for the Chinese Internet,” Reporters Without Borders said. “No one is fooled. The pretext of combating pornography does not hold. The aim is to tighten political control and get Internet users to censor themselves by bringing them face to face with their censors or their agents. What netizen will dare to criticise the regime after meeting the person who could put them behind bars for one wrong word?”

China Tightens Internet Restrictions

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:25:00 PST

China has tightened its controls on Internet use, requiring anyone who wants to set up a Web site to meet directly with government regulators.

The new rules, published by the Technology Ministry this week, also require Web site owners to submit their identity cards and personal photos.

Attacks on the Press 2009: China

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:34:44 PST

Top Developments
• More access for foreign reporters, tighter rules for local assistants.
• As online use grows, government censors sites, jails critics.

Key Statistic
24: Journalists jailed as of December 1, 2009.

While China’s ruling communist party celebrated 60 years in power in 2009, its critics commemorated antigovernment movements in Tibet in 1949 and Tiananmen Square in 1989. Government agencies used a security apparatus strengthened for the 2008 Olympics to restrict dissenting voices during all three landmark anniversaries.

China: Internet Censorship and Cyber Heists

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:58:52 PST

When Google threatened to quit China, most of the focus was on human rights and the country’s extensive system of internet censorship, the Great Firewall. China rebuffed such criticism. Countries that censor political speech on the internet are quick to point out that western nations also have laws governing content online, some of it political.Germany bans neo-Nazi symbols on German internet sites. The state of South Australia recently attempted to ban anonymous political speech online in the lead-up to elections. China said it was its sovereign right to set limits on internet activities. However, less attention was paid to Google’s claims that hackers had also stolen corporate secrets in addition to targeting human rights activists.

This highlighted a little discussed problem. While China calls on other countries to respect its laws, it must do more to curtail internet attacks focused on foreign companies that do business there. The Chinese government denied involvement in the attempts to gain access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists or attempts to steal Google’s corporate secrets. It is almost impossible to link attacks online to a single player, much less link the shadowy hackers to a government. Attempts to find a technical link to China in the latest round of attacks failed to uncover a smoking gun. However, security researchers have found that companies doing business in China find their networks hacked and documents relating to business there stolen. A report by US defence company Northrop Grumman last year found that attacks against the US and “many countries around the world” were “extremely focused”, not only on scientific and defence secrets but also on “China-related policy information”.

Call for release of China’s “Olympic prisoners” during Vancouver Games

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:49:24 PST

As Vancouver prepares to inaugurate the 2010 Winter Olympics tomorrow, China continues to detain human rights activists, journalists and bloggers who were arrested for speaking out before, during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“Dozens of Chinese families continue to suffer the awful effects of the last Olympics because a loved-one is still in jail for using the fundamental right to free expression,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Unfortunately, the International Olympic Committee and its president, Jacques Rogge, are doing nothing to obtain the release of these innocent people, whose ordeal is a stain on the Olympic movement’s reputation.”
Reporters Without Borders has sent a petition to Rogge asking him to intercede with the Chinese authorities and seek the release of the “Olympic prisoners” during the Vancouver Games. Signed by more than 1,600 Internet users, the petition urges Rogge “to speak up and to act in defence of free expression.”

Heavy jail sentences for activists who wrote about plight of Sichuan earthquake victims

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:18:16 PST

Reporters Without Borders condemns the long jail sentences that judges in Chengdu (in the southwestern province of Sichuan) have imposed on two human rights activists and netizens in the past 48 hours. A three-year sentence was upheld for Huang Qi yesterday while Tan Zuoren was given a five-year sentence at a hearing today during which police arrested and manhandled nine Hong Kong journalists.
“Bloggers and human rights defenders who dared to contradict official reports about the victims of the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan are being treated like criminals,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We deplore the severe jail sentences that have been passed without due process and we appeal to the supreme court and justice ministry to review these two cases and to investigate the use of violence against the Hong Kong journalists who wanted to cover Tan’s hearing.”
The press freedom organisation added: “After convicting human rights activist Liu Xiaobo on Christmas Day, the authorities are now using the Chinese New Year period to announce very harsh sentences for dissidents who are well known in China and abroad.”

Editor Reviewing China Quake Deaths Sentenced

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:58:50 PST

The sentencing of an outspoken literary editor to five years in prison for subversion showed that the Chinese government will not relent in its ongoing crackdown against critics and dissidents, supporters of the editor said Tuesday.

The editor, Tan Zuoren, was sentenced Tuesday morning by a court in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, for criticizing the Chinese Communist Party by writing and protesting recently against the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, when soldiers killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of civilians.

But Mr. Tan’s supporters said he had another black mark against him — he was assembling an independent report on the thousands of children killed when schools collapsed across Sichuan and nearby provinces during a devastating earthquake in May 2008.

China Sentences Quake Activist to 5 Years’ Jail

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:51:16 PST

Activist Tan Zuoren, who had been investigating the deaths of schoolchildren in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, has been sentenced to five years in prison after being tried in August. From AP:

Attorney Pu Zhiqiang said activist Tan Zuoren was convicted of the charge Tuesday by the Chengdu Intermediate Court. Tan’s trial in August had concluded with no ruling, while police detained and threatened the man’s supporters.

Tan’s supporters say they believe the authorities were trying to silence him for his investigation into the collapse of schools in the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck in Sichuan province in May 2008, leaving almost 90,000 dead or missing. Tan estimated at least 5,600 students were among the dead.

The charge of inciting subversion of state power is believed linked to his quake investigation as well as essays he wrote about the 1989 student-led demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that ended in a deadly military crackdown. Beijing routinely uses such broad and vaguely defined accusations to imprison dissidents, sometimes for years.

Pu said Tan would appeal the court’s decision.

Did Gao Zhisheng die under torture in detention?

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:28:59 PST

Reporters Without Borders calls on the Chinese authorities to produce evidence that detained human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, of whom there has been no news since 4 February 2009, is still alive.
“We fear the worst,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The authorities must provide his relatives with proof that he is still alive. They must give the family details about his current place of detention and must allow his wife to have direct contact with him.”
The press freedom organisation added: “If anything has happened to him while in detention, the authorities will be held responsible and those who had a direct hand in it must be identified and punished. The uncertainty about his fate has gone on long enough.”
After being sentenced for the first time to three years in prison in 2006, he was released and then rearrested several times. He was arrested for the last time in his home in Shaanxi by Public Security Department officials on 4 February 2009. When later asked what had happened to him, the police said he “disappeared” in September 2009.

China steps up restrictions on media, IFJ report says

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:04:48 PST

China has some of the tightest media restrictions in the world
China has intensified efforts over the past year to control what the media can say, a report by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) says.
It says hundreds of regulations have been introduced since the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to restrict reporters writing on social unrest or scandals.
Journalists were told they could only use the official Xinhua news agency during the 2008 tainted baby milk row.

Internet still not restored in Xinjiang

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:12:22 PST

Despite claims by the Chinese authorities that restrictions on Internet services and communications are gradually being lifted in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, this is not the case. Official websites such as Xinhuanet.com and People.com.cn are again available but most of the Internet is still cut off seven months after the riots.
“We condemn the Chinese government’s propaganda, which is trying to give the impression that communications have been restored in Xinjiang,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Despite a few highly-publicised measures, the Internet in Xinjiang continues in practice to be cut off from the rest of the world.”

Online journalist and writer to be tried for covering demonstration

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:10:46 PST

Reporters Without Borders is very worried about the state of health of online journalist and writer Huang Xiaomin, who has been detained since March 2009 in the southwestern province of Sichuan and is due to be tried on 1 February. “We urge the authorities to drop the charges against him and free him at once,” the organisation said.
Huang Xiaomin was arrested by the Jinniu district public security bureau in connection with his coverage of a 23 February demonstration outside the intermediate people’s court in the provincial capital of Chengdu for the release of cyber-dissident Huang Qi, the creator of the Tianwang website and human rights network, who has been unjustly detained since June 2008.
A contributor to several independent websites, Huang Xiaomin is accused of “disturbing the social order” although all he did was take photos of the dozen or so protesters. He has been held since April in a detention centre in the city of Leshan. His family has never been given a copy of any arrest warrant.

China Issues Sharp Rebuke to U.S. Calls for an Investigation on Google Attacks

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:17:36 PST

BEIJING — China delivered a bristling response on Monday to the United States’ demand that it investigate recent attacks on American computers from Chinese soil, saying that any suggestion that it conducted or condoned the hackers’ intrusions was “groundless and aims to denigrate China.”

The comment, in a published interview with a government spokesman, was part of a broadside in China’s state-run news media on Monday that cast the United States as a cyberhegemonist, trying to dominate the global information flow by meddling in Chinese Internet policies.

Interviews and news articles placed in major state newspapers and on prominent Web sites underscored the chill in public exchanges between the governments since Jan. 12, when Google threatened to leave China unless Beijing stopped censoring its search results.