Add Locusts to China's List of Calamities
BEIJING — First there was the freak snowstorm in February. Then the Tibetan riots in March. Then in rapid succession the controversial torch relay, Sichuan earthquake, widespread flooding and an algae bloom that's tarnishing the Olympic sailing venue. Just when it seemed that nothing else could go wrong this year in China, the locusts arrived.
Locusts? What is going on here? The litany of near-biblical woes would seem to lack only a famine, frogs and smiting of the first born.
The Middle Kingdom's parade of problems has threatened to put a major damper on China's anticipated moment of glory less than five weeks before the start of the 2008 Beijing Games.
"This sure has been a weird year," said Ma Zhijie, 20, who works in a coffee shop. "There are so many disasters, it's hard to know what's happening."
Read the rest of this Los Angeles Times article here.
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Chinese Bloggers Scale the 'Great Firewall' in Riot's Aftermath
To slip past Internet censors squashing reports of a weekend riot in China's Guizhou province, some bloggers have started writing backward.
Some 30,000 rioters set fire to government buildings over the weekend to protest the way authorities handled the death of a teenager in the province's Weng'an County. While state-controlled media provided immediate coverage, government censors moved fast to delete online posts providing unofficial accounts and deactivate the accounts of those users.
So bloggers on forums such as Tianya.cn have taken to posting in formats that China's Internet censors, often employees of commercial Internet service providers, have a hard time automatically detecting. One recent strategy involves online software that flips sentences to read right to left instead of left to right, and vertically instead of horizontally.
China's sophisticated censorship regime —known as the Great Firewall— can automatically track objectionable phrases. But "the country also has the most experienced and talented group of netizens who always know ways around it," said an editor at Tianya, owned by Hainan Tianya Online Networking Technology Co., who has been responsible for deleting posts about the riot.
Read the rest of this Wall Street Journal article here.
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US Search Engines Operating in China Censoring Themselves
To operate in China, search engine companies based in the United States have built products that cooperate with China's policies of Internet censorship. That much has long been recognized. But a new analysis suggests that search companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, are independently deciding what to censor and could be censoring more information than Chinese laws demand.
A report released last week by the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto found that different search engines are blocking fairly different content.
"The low overlap means that companies are choosing the exact content to censor or, alternatively, to not censor," says Nart Villeneuve, a senior research fellow at the Citizen Lab and the author of the report. "That doesn't mean that they're not getting guidance from the Chinese government in other ways," he notes.
But Villeneuve says that if search engines are interpreting Chinese policies to decide what to censor, that introduces the possibility that they may block more content than is strictly necessary.
Read the rest of this Technology Review article here.
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Dalai Lama Envoys Arrive in China for Talks
DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters) - Senior envoys of the Dalai Lama arrived in China on Monday to meet the government over the issue of Tibet, the Tibetan government-in-exile said.
The talks, scheduled from July 1-2 in Beijing, aim to mend fences with the Dalai Lama who fled into exile in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.
This is the second meeting between the two sides since a crackdown on protests against Chinese rule in Tibet earlier this year, which led to an international diplomatic chorus for China to hold a dialogue with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
Read the rest of this Reuters article here.
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Boxun Journalist in Nanjing Gets Four Years in Prison
Reporters Without Borders condemns the four-year prison sentence that a court in the eastern city ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif Nanjing imposed on Sun Lin, a journalist better known by the pen-name Jie Mu, on 27 June.
A contributor to the overseas Chinese news website , Sun was convicted of “gathering crowds to cause social unrest” and “illegal possession of firearms.” His wife, He Fang, who also contributes to Boxun, was released after being given a suspended prison sentence.
“Two well-known news website contributors have been given jail terms after an investigation marked by mendacious allegations and a trial marred by irregularities,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This is yet another tragic example of the government’s inability to tolerate journalists who dare to report news freely, without constraint or censorship.”
The press freedom organization calls for the release of Sun and the one hundred other journalists, cyber-dissidents and press freedom activists currently held in China.
The verdict was issued in a hearing held in the absence of Sun’s family and lawyer as they had not been told it was going to take place. Sun’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, told a Radio Free Asia journalist: “Under the code of criminal procedure, the court should wait three days after announcing a hearing. And a court should issue its verdict publicly. This court violated both principles.” Mo hopes to see his client in the next few days to discuss an appeal.
Boxun issued a statement saying Sun had been punished for his work as a citizen journalist, above all for his video reports.
Sun, who along with his wife had been held in Nanjing since 30 May 2007, has always denied the two charges. He told his lawyer that the police mainly questioned him about his journalistic activities and told him he had been arrested for refusing to stop reporting and writing articles for Boxun.
Sun said the firearms charge was based on false statements by persons who claimed that he gave them air pistols. He does not even know one of these persons. He added that the charge of disturbing the peace was based on an incident in 2004 when he was trying to help evicted people and did nothing illegal.
Sun, who also founded the now-banned newspaper Da Du Shi, told Reporters Without Borders before his arrest that he had written articles about abuse of authority but had never done anything illegal.
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Journalists Attacked by Government Guards in Yangpu District
Shanghai Law Ruling News reporter Lin Yudan and photographer Weng Lei were attacked on June 27 by government guards in the Yangpu District while covering alleged official corruption.
Boxun News has a detailed report in Chinese here.
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Reporter's Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics
Human Rights Watch in China has published a guide pocket guide for reporters planning to travel to China to cover the Beijing Olympics.
Produced with the support of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Reporters’ Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics addresses how to report in a largely closed country, with particular attention to the hazards facing Chinese sources and news assistants.
An estimated 25,000 foreign journalists will cover the Beijing Games. This guide spells out both their rights – in particular under the Chinese government’s temporary regulations for foreign journalists – and the risks they or their Chinese contacts may face. The Reporters’ Guide is also downloadable online at no cost at http://china.hrw.org/, and will also soon be available in French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.
“Many of the journalists heading to Beijing are veteran sports and Olympics reporters, but the environment in China poses unique challenges,” said Minky Worden, media director at Human Rights Watch and editor of China’s Great Leap (http://china.hrw.org/chinas_great_leap), a new collection of essays on China and the Olympics. “Journalists will encounter extensive government surveillance, internet censorship, and serious risks to Chinese fixers and sources.”
The promise of human rights improvements was a central plank of Beijing’s successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics, after its failure to win the 2000 Summer Games. The Chinese government pledged full press freedom to journalists planning to cover the Games. “We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China,” said Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, in 2001.
Yet China remains the world’s leading jailer of journalists, censors the internet, and retaliates against Chinese citizens thought to be sources for stories critical of the government.
Designed as a “survival guide” for reporters new to China, the handbook covers:
· Risks and Rights: an overview of both the risks faced by reporters and their rights, in particular under the temporary regulations for foreign journalists;
· Outside the Arena: important but sensitive human rights topics and the Chinese government’s legal tools to prevent and punish such coverage;
· Security, Surveillance and Safety: tips on countering censorship, and dealing with the police in problematic situations;
· Protecting Your Chinese Contacts: how not to endanger sources and news assistants;
· The Great Firewall: internet censorship and tips to counter it; and,
· Practical Information: an appendix listing useful numbers and websites as well as a bilingual (English/Chinese) version of the temporary regulations (which can be shown, for example, to officials questioning a reporter in the field).
Human Rights Watch is releasing the Reporters’ Guide six months to the day after the December 27, 2007, detention of human rights advocate Hu Jia, who was sentenced on April 3 to three and a half years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power.” The charges were based on five articles Hu wrote and two interviews he gave to foreign media, in part on human rights abuses in China in the context of the Beijing Games.
“We hope that reporters headed to Beijing will do their best to tell the complex story of life in China today, including the important human stories beyond the sports arenas,” said Worden. “The key to covering China effectively without jeopardizing your staff, your sources, and yourself, is to be prepared and informed. We hope this guide will help.”
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Lawyer Launches Test of Freedom of Information in China
A Beijing lawyer has launched a test of China’s new Open Government Information (OGI) Regulations (政府信息公开条例), which, according to the OGI, are intended to "ensure that citizens, legal persons and other organizations (公民、法人和其他组织) can obtain government information by lawful means, and increase government transparency," Human Rights in China has learned.
Lawyer Cheng Hai (程海) filed a request on June 24 asking the Beijing authorities to disclose the procedures and the committee members relating to the Reeducation-Through-Labor (RTL) (劳动教养) program. The request was made under the new OGI rules, which became effective on May 1, 2008.
The outcome of this request by a concerned citizen and member of China's legal profession will serve as a good test of how serious the authorities are about transparency and implementing the new Open Government Information Regulations.
“The outcome of this request by a concerned citizen and member of China’s legal profession will serve as a good test of how serious the authorities are about transparency and implementing the new Open Government Information Regulations,” said Human Rights in China Executive Director Sharon Hom.
Under the OGI regulations, citizens may file requests with government offices at the central and local levels to access “relevant government information in light of their special needs for production, living or scientific research.”
If the government does not disclose the requested information, citizens may inform the next highest administrative level of the responsible agency, apply for administrative reconsideration, or bring an administrative lawsuit.
RTL is a system of administrative detention that offers no due process protection to individuals. The RTL system has been criticized for its vague and arbitrary scope, the disproportionate severity of sentences, and abusive conditions in RTL facilities as well as the lack of due process.
Cheng’s request was directed to the Beijing Municipal Government (北京市人民政府) and the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB) (北京市公安局). The request seeks to clarify, among other things, inconsistencies between the State Council regulations on RTL and Public Security Ministry regulations.
Whereas the State Council requires that the members of RTL Decision Committees (劳动教养管理委员会) be a mix of civil affairs, public security, and labor department staff, the lower level regulations promulgated by Public Security Ministry instead state that RTL Approval Committees (劳动教养审批委员会), which are responsible for making the RTL decisions in the name of Decision Committees, be comprised of only staff members of public security agencies, with no supervision or participation by others. The request also calls on the government to publish the process of examination and approval for RTL sentences.
On June 27, Cheng was told by the Beijing Government Information Office that his request should be directed to the Public Security Bureau and not to the Beijing Municipal Government. At Cheng’s insistence, the government agreed to put the decision in writing. The Public Security Bureau has not yet responded to the request for information.
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RSF Denouces Increased Pre-Olympic Represion
Reporters Without Borders has recorded 24 cases of journalists, cyber-dissidents or free expression activists being arrested or sentenced to jail terms since the start of the year. At the same time, at least 80 foreign journalists have been obstructed in the course of their work, above all in the Tibetan regions and in Sichuan.
"Where is the opening so often promised by the organizers of the Beijing Olympic Games and the International Olympic Committee?", the press freedom organization asked. "Instead of an opening, these games are being used, more than ever, as a pretext to arrest, harass and censor. This situation is unacceptable and reflects the IOC’s inability to guarantee a favorable environment for the games in accordance with the Olympic Charter."
Last year ended badly with the arrest of leading activist Hu Jia in late December, and the start of this year was marked by his sentence to three and a half years in prison. But at least 23 other journalists, online writers and free speech activists have been arrested or sentenced to prison terms.
The authorities have made some concessions, such as the release of Ching Cheong and Yu Huafeng, but they have taken no account of the fact that the health of Zhang Jianhong, a writer better known as Li Hong, and Yang Maodong, a writer better known as Guo Feixiong, has deteriorated in prison.
The terrible earthquake in Sichuan has not helped to reduce the repression either. Journalist Qi Chonghuai was sentenced to four years in prison the day after the quake. And Huang Qi, a well-known activist who has a human rights website, was arrested on 10 June for reporting the arrest of a person who had been writing accounts of the quake and its aftermath.
The harassment of activists who talk to the foreign news media or write articles for overseas Chinese media has also been stepped up. This campaign is being orchestrated by the public security and state security departments in order to intimidate human rights activists who might try to speak out before or during the games.
Reporters Without Borders’ chief demand, as regards the Beijing Olympics, has always been the release of imprisoned journalists, cyber-dissidents and free expression activists before the start of the games.
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Internet Helps Liberate, Create Music in China
When America was rocking to the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, the airwaves in China were dominated by songs with lyrics from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book.
It's more open today, but the Communist government still bans anything that mentions sex or violence, or that has "low class humor" — which bans an awful lot of American music. So the music most likely to come pouring out of the radio in China is syrupy ballads usually produced in Hong Kong or Taiwan.
But Chinese musicians and fans are finding a whole new universe of sound on the Internet. And it's helping to create and nourish a new generation of independent artists in China.
Read the rest of this National Public Radio article here.
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China Reopens Tibet to Foreign Tourists
Tibet reopened to foreign tourists today, three months after the Chinese government banned such visits in the wake of violent anti-government riots and protests that tainted the image of the country ahead of the Olympics.
The first foreign tourists, a retired Swedish couple, arrived at the airport near the capital, Lhasa, on Wednesday, said Tibetan Tourism Bureau spokesman Liao Lisheng.
"Tibet is open now to all travelers from home and abroad," he said.
Read the rest of this Associated Press article here.
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IOC Told It Must Demand Strong Apology From Tibet Officials
Reporters Without Borders thinks that the International Olympic Committee has not gone far enough in its expression of “regret” today about the political message of hatred towards the Dalai Lama and his followers that two senior Communist Party officials made during the Olympic torch relay in Lhasa on June 21.
“It is not enough for the IOC to express its regret about the extreme gravity of what happened in Tibet,” the press freedom organization said. “The IOC’s president, Jacques Rogge, must request a public apology from those who made these comments and from the BOCOG (Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee). The IOC’s silence on human rights issues allows these excesses, in which the Olympic Games are used to justify repression in Tibet.”
RSF already criticized the IOC’s silence on 23 June.
Agence France-Presse reported that the IOC issued an email statement today saying: “The IOC regrets that political statements were made during the closing ceremony of the torch relay in Tibet. We have written to BOCOG to remind them of the need to separate sport and politics.”
Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party’s secretary in Tibet, said during the Olympic flame ceremony in Lhasa: “In order to bring more glory to the Olympic spirit, we should firmly smash the plots to ruin the Beijing Olympic Games by the Dalai clique and hostile foreign forces inside and outside of the nation.”
Qin Yizhi, another party official, also called for the Dalai Lama’s supporters to be “smashed.”
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European Commissioner Calls China's Internet Control 'Unacceptable'
It is unacceptable for China to block Internet content, a European Commissioner said Friday, calling the Internet a free and open medium.
"We say for instance to the Chinese, very clearly so, that their blocking of certain Internet content is absolutely unacceptable," said Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
"So Europe speaks up in this sense, and is fighting for the freedom of speech and the freedom to receive the news," she said.
Read the rest of this AFP article here.
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RSF Urges France to Support Games Ceremony Boycott
Reporters Without Borders called on France, as new president of the European Council, and its European partners to say they would boycott the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing on Aug. 8.
Members of the worldwide press freedom organization unfurled a giant 100 square meter banner showing the Olympic rings as handcuffs across the front of a building opposite the Brussels headquarters of the Council, which began its new session today.
“Threatening to boycott the ceremony may be the only way to get concrete results,” it said. “If Europe does not take a stand, the Chinese government will be able to dismiss future European Union demands to improve human rights. The Olympic flame will be passing through the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in a few days time and Europe’s political leaders will win respect by firmly calling now for greater freedom of expression in China. Repression of journalists there has not diminished and well-known dissident and blogger Huang Qi has just been arrested again. It is urgent for Europe to speak up.
“French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said clearly that he will not attend the ceremony unless talks resume between the government and representatives of the Dalai Lama. The situation is deadlocked and China rejected the recent United States and EU joint call for sincere talks about Tibet as interference in its internal affairs. Beijing also refuses to allow foreign journalists to visit Tibet and the neighboring Xinjiang autonomous region where mass arrests and 're-education' operations are under way,” Reporters Without Borders said.
“The competitors at the Games rightly say it is up the politicians, not them, to sort out this tricky issue. The Council of Europe must not pass up this historic chance to create the necessary conditions to extract real progress from the Chinese government. The ruling Communist Party will not always be able to get away with answering legitimate demands to free political prisoners by drumming up nationalistic fervor.”
Reporters Without Borders has for several months been urging a boycott of the opening ceremony by heads of state and government and members of royal families. The Polish, Estonian, Austrian and Czech governments have already agreed not to attend. Most EU states have not yet taken a stand and are waiting for France to take the lead in the name of Europe.
Reporters Without Borders is also calling on European institutions to ask the International Olympic Committee to consider the criteria for allowing countries to host future Olympic Games and to take account of the local level of individual liberty, notably freedom of expression.
About 100 journalists, cyber-dissidents, bloggers and other Internet users are currently imprisoned in China, with only two months to go before the Games start. The Chinese government has not kept the promises it made to improve human rights after Beijing was awarded the 2008 Games in 2001.
For more on the Reporters Without Borders worldwide campaign concerning the 2008 Games, see: www.rsf.org (in English, Chinese, Spanish, French and Arabic).
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China Splits Hairs by Charging a Dissident with ‘Splittism’
English PEN reports that Chinese dissident writer and journalist Chen Daojun was detained on May 9 in the city of Chengdu, in the Sichuan Province, on charges of "inciting splittism."
According to the report, freelance journalist Chen Daojun was among a number of people detained while protesting the building of a chemical plant in the town of Pengzhou, 39 km outside the capital, Chengdu.
It was initially thought that Chen Daojun would be charged with "inciting subversion of state power." However, according to recent reports, he has in fact been charged with "inciting splittism".
This charge, which is most often used against Tibetans and Uighurs in China, most likely stems from an article Chen published following the Tibetan protests in which he defended the basic rights of Tibetans and condemned the Chinese government's violent crackdown on protesters.
Please send appeals:
·Expressing serious concern about the charges against detained journalist Chen Daojun;
·Pointing out that he appears to have been charged in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which China is a signatory, and if so calling for his immediate and unconditional release.
Appeals to:
His Excellency Hu Jintao
President of the People's Republic of China
State Council
Beijing 100032
P.R. China.
Mr. Meng Jianzhu
Minister of the Public Security
East Chang'an Avenue 14
100741 Beijing
P.R. China
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FCCC Urges Free Access to Quake Areas for Visiting Journalists
The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China is concerned about the recent increase in reporting interference cases in Sichuan.
Coming a month after the earthquake, the tightening restrictions in some areas run contrary to the openness that was widely praised in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
Entire towns, such as Dujiangyuan, have been declared off-limits to foreign reporters, particularly those who have attempted to report on the collapse of schools.
Some parents of children who died in those schools say they have been warned by police not to speak to overseas news organizations. In the past week the FCCC has received reports that at least seven foreign media teams have been stopped or temporarily detained, most of them at the Dujiangyuan courthouse.
Others report being blocked at checkpoints or followed on the grounds of "safety" and "traffic regulations." Several of these incidents are detailed on the FCCC website.
Some areas, such as Beichuan, are still relatively open. But overall reporting conditions have deteriorated. In the early stages of the relief operation, foreign journalists were allowed to travel relatively freely upon showing their ministry of foreign affairs press passes.
Now, they are required to obtain special photo-passes from the Sichuan foreign affairs department and also extra permits from some local counties, such as Deyang, as well. Although the risks of aftershocks, floods and landslides are far lower than a month ago, police increasingly restrict movement on the grounds of "safety".
FCCC members greatly appreciated the opportunity to report relatively freely in Sichuan in the first two weeks after the earthquake. Access was crucial to understanding the situation, seeing the work done by relief teams and understanding the needs and circumstances of the victims. Reporters were willing to take risks to report this.
Now, however because of the political sensitivity of the school collapses, some authorities are tightening controls. The detentions at Dujiangyuan and Juyuan are not in keeping with the transparency that,in the wake of the tragedy, Premier Wen Jiabao promised 'will never change'.
It also runs contrary to new Olympic reporting regulations that allow foreign reporters to interview any organization or individual with their prior consent.
The FCCC has asked the government to re-open restricted areas and to allow quake victims to speak freely to foreign reporters. The club is happy to share details of the incidents with the central government and Sichuanese authorities and to discuss ways in which the situation might be improved.
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'Hacktivists' Trying to Bring Down Great Firewall of China
As Beijing readies itself for the Olympic Games in August, Chinese dissidents living in the U.S. have launched an attack on the country's so-called "Great Firewall," which prohibits its citizens from having full access to the Internet.
Much like China's state-controlled newspapers, radio and television, the Communist Party maintains a tight grip on the Internet, often blocking access to Web sites critical of the government.
Chinese dissident Bill Xia is among a group of U.S.-based computer hackers — or "hacktivists" — who send mass e-mails to Internet users in China that contain software or links to safe Web sites that enable readers to bypass government roadblocks on the Internet.
Read the rest of this Fox News article here.
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China Reports Release of 1,000 Tibetan Demonstrators
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has released most of the 1,315 people detained in the wake of Tibet's deadly riots because their offences were minor, a senior official said on Friday.
Courts in Tibet have so far sentenced 42 people for crimes including arson, robbery and gathering to assault state organisations, Xinhua news agency quoted Palma Trily, executive vice chairman of Tibet's government, as saying.
A further 116 people are in custody awaiting trial, and 1,157 have been released, the official said.
Palma Trily was speaking after human rights group Amnesty International alleged in a report on Thursday that more than 1,000 people were still detained without charge in Tibet in the wake of the riots.
Read the rest of this Reuters article here.
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AI Reports 1,000 Protesters Unaccounted for in Tibet
As the Olympic torch relay travels to Lhasa, Amnesty International urged the Chinese government to provide information about the over 1,000 people detained during the protests last March and called for free access to Tibet by independent observers.
The call came as Amnesty International published an update on the situation in Tibet since the outbreak of violence – looking at the continuing violent crackdown against protesters, the situation of those detained, including those reported to have been beaten and deprived of proper health care and adequate food, and the severe censorship facing journalists and Tibetans.
“There is very little information coming out of Tibet, but the information we have paints a dire picture of arbitrary detentions and abuse of detainees,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific Director at Amnesty International. “With the torch relay about to enter Tibetan areas, this should be an opportunity to shine some light on the situation there.”
Official reports only provide information on a small number of those who have been sentenced after questionable trials.
Foreign journalists are still blocked from entering Tibet. Limited reports that have come through friends and family members to the media and Tibetan organizations say police and security forces have confiscated mobile phones, computers and other communications equipment in hundreds of raids on monasteries, nunneries and private homes, physically preventing thousands from communication with the outside world.
Those who dare to find ways of sending information to foreign media or human rights organizations regarding protests and arrests, risk arrest and imprisonment.
“The complete lock-down in Tibet is allowing human rights abuses such as arbitrary detentions, ill treatment and severe censorship to go unreported and unpunished,” said Sam Zarifi.
“Hundreds of people languish in Chinese prisons for peacefully expressing their opinions, in appalling conditions and without their relatives even knowing where they are. The passing of the torch should allow journalists a chance to see the actual situation on the ground and promote the ‘Free and Open Olympics’ promised in the Beijing Olympic Action Plan.”
Chinese authorities have not only detained monks and nuns and other protesters, they have also targeted Tibetan artists who did not have any direct involvement in the on-going protests. What these figures had in common was involvement in efforts to preserve Tibetan culture. Jamyang Kyi, a well-known singer, TV presenter and producer, was arrested on 1 April from her work place at the Qinghai TV station and held incommunicado for at least one month before, it is believed, being placed under house arrest, only after paying a significant fee.
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China’s Press Freedom Record under Scrutiny at the US Congress
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a Federal Congress-chartered advisory body, has just held hearings on China’s compliance with international press freedom standards.
The Commission —which monitors, investigates, and submits to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the US and China— heard testimonies about access to information and media control in China.
One of the panels, focusing on information control and media influence associated with the Olympics, included the testimony of Lucie Morillon (above), Washington Representative for Reporters without Borders, who gave a detailed account about China’s dismal press freedom record during the run-up to the Games.
Morillon acknowledged that the Chinese regime “is releasing an increasing number of stories only in English about previously taboo topics (…) while keeping this information out of the reach of most Chinese citizens.”
She indicated that whereas the government is more willing to provide information to the media, they have exerted an even tighter control over what is published by the media, and those who dare crossing the information line, pay dearly.
“Several Chinese dissidents who dare to call for improvements of human rights in the run-up to the Games have ended up in jail,” she testified. “Among them are blogger Hu Jia and Yang Chunlin. We call them the ‘Olympic prisoners’.”
As for the Chinese government’s promises to allow national and international media “complete freedom to report” during the games, Morillon said those pledges “have been blatantly violated with regard to the work of Chinese reporters, who are still subject to very strict censorship.”
She added restrictions have increased for foreign journalists to cover events in China to the point where access to areas such as Tibet or earthquake-ravaged Sichuan has been either restricted or completely cut off.
She also mentioned tightening Internet regulations, which were implemented in January “under which only websites that are licensed” by the government “are able to post videos and audio files online. Videos and audio files ‘attacking national sovereignty’ will not be tolerated,” Morillon said.
Other areas of concern about Internet restrictions for RSF include content that refers to ethnicity, pornography, gambling or terrorism or any other content that won’t “serve socialist ideals and the Chinese people,” she said quoting a government edict.
“With China’s record as the world’s champion of Internet censorship,” she added, “we are concerned that Web freedom won’t be guaranteed during the Games — which would be a violation of the terms of the Olympic contract.”
Underlining the fact that the press freedom situation in China has not improved, she reminded the Commission’s members that that country holds an infamous world record.
“All these restrictions would not be surprising as they come from the country that is the world’s biggest prison for journalists, with 30 reporters and 48 cyber-dissidents behind bars,” she said. “There are twice the number of journalists in jail now than there were in 2001, the time when we were promised ‘complete press freedom’.”
Morillon also testified about the Chinese government’s manipulation of the Chinese people’s perceptions about the Western world and the protests that the running of the torch ignited in many countries. The regime’s message to the people was that everything was fine and that the protests were the deeds of “small groups of activists.”
“Their strategy was to manipulate public opinion,” she said. “Dissent was not tolerated. This approach is shaping the Chinese people’s perception of world affairs.”
Finally, Morillon urged the Commission to use its influence for the US to step up the pressure on China both before and after the Games to achieve the following goals:
—Release all journalists and Internet users jailed in China for exercising their right to information.
—Disband the Publicity Department (formerly the Propaganda Department), which exercises daily censorship over content in the Chinese press.
—Stop the blocking of thousands of news and information websites based abroad.
—Suspend the “11 Commandments of the Internet,” which lead to content censorship and self-censorship on websites.
—Lift the ban on Chinese media using foreign news agency video footage and news reports without permission, which is a violation of the World Trade Organization agreements.
Morillon’s full transcript of her testimony can be found here.
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China to Be Charged with WTO Violations
The California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) will testify before a Congressional commission this week concerning the Chinese government’s system of internet censorship, which CFAC is challenging as a violation of free trade treaties enforced by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The hearings on “Access to Information and Media Control in the People’s Republic of China” are being held Wednesday, June 18, in Washington, DC, before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan commission created by Congress.
The hearings will cover a range of topics concerning China’s information control policies, including information on ethnic unrest, participation by U.S. technology companies in Internet censorship, and the application of WTO treaties to the “Great Firewall,” as China’s censorship system has come to be known.
Testifying for CFAC is Gilbert Kaplan, a trade law expert in Washington, who represents CFAC in its WTO initiative. In briefings to the US Trade Representative (USTR), the executive branch office that represents the U.S. government at the WTO, CFAC has contested China’s blocking of many US-based and other western websites that are either deemed offensive by Chinese government censors, or are feared by the government as potential platforms for self-expression by Chinese citizens.
Some major websites subject to recent blocking, according to CFAC, are:
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com)
BBC News (news. bbc.co.uk)
Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com)
LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com)
Tripod (http://www.tripod.lycos.com)
Technorati (http://www.technorati.com)
WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com)
Xanga (http://www.xanga.com)
Blogeasy (http://www.blogeasy.com)
Flickr (http://www.flickr.com)
.Mac (http://www.apple.com/dotmac)
Also blocked by the Great Firewall are the websites of many US-based Chinese language newspapers and other media, including:
Asian Gazette
Chicago Chinese News
China Press
Chinese Daily News
Duowei Times
Epoch Times
Overseas Chinese News
Sing Tao Daily
Sino Times
World Journal
Chinese American Voice
Sing Tao Radio
Even when popular US-based websites are not being completely blocked inside China, the websites’ performance is seriously degraded by the Great Firewall, which adds several seconds (or more) to websites’ loading times, as experienced by people in China, says CFAC. This performance deficit puts US-based websites at a severe disadvantage compared to their Chinese competitors, whose websites’ function normally inside China.
CFAC has argued to the USTR that these practices violate the major treaties on international trade —the “GATT” and “GATS” treaties— to which China became subject when it joined the WTO in 2001. CFAC is petitioning the USTR to file a complaint against China with the WTO. A WTO ruling against China would put enormous pressure on the government of China to change its practices.
Also testifying at the hearing on Wednesday are Charles Freeman, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Xiao Qiang, Director, China Internet Project, University of California-Berkeley, and Ronald J. Deibert, Director, Citizen Lab-Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, and Principal Investigator for the OpenNet Initiative, among other witnesses.
CFAC is supported in its China initiative by a consortium of organizations, including the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, the National Freedom of Information Coalition, and the China Internet Project at UC Berkeley, among others.
Kaplan, CFAC’s lawyer, is a partner in the law firm of King & Spalding and specialist in international disputes involving price discrimination, government subsidies and intellectual property infringement. As a senior government official, Kaplan was in charge of enforcing U.S. anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws for the Department of Commerce in the 1980s.
CFAC, a nonprofit organization, advocates for Freedom of Speech and more open and accountable government. In addition to education programs and providing free legal consultations to journalists, ethnic media, bloggers and activists, CFAC files test-case lawsuits. In early 2008 CFAC organized the legal defense of wikileaks.org, a controversial and innovative whistleblower website that had been shut down by a federal court order.
For more information about the Wednesday hearings or about CFAC, contact CFAC executive director Peter Scheer.
ps@cfac.org
415-460-5060
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Conference about 'Realities of the Internet' Held in Hong Kong
This year's Chinese Internet Research Conference was held at Hong Kong University June 13-14 under the theme, "China and the Internet: Myth and Realities."
The conference, sponsored by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of the University of Hong Kong, focused on issues such as whether the Internet brings more democracy to a country, whether there is freedom of expression on the Internet or whether the Chinese use the web only for entertainment purposes.
The event also explored the political, social, economic, cultural and institutional aspects of the Internet in China.
The conference's lineup of speakers and summaries of their presentations can be found here.
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Journalists Attacked and Robbed in Shanxi Province
A group of journalists from Beijing Cyber News was attacked and robbed by guards at the entrance of a coal mine in the Shanxi Province. One of the journalists was hospitalized with broken bones and bruises.
What follows is a rough translation by China Free Press:
At around 8 pm. on June 4, (Yaerya town in the southern suburb of Datong City, Shanxi Province) journalists from Beijng Cyber News were attacked by a group of guards, at the entrance to a coal mine called Tanyaoguo, with their equipments and cash robbed.
Their car was damaged too. One of the journalists was badly wounded and sent to hospital, ankle broken, and bloodshed in eyes. The outrage lasted for about half an hour.
The driver was also a victim, and one journalist was nearly left behind in the wild of mountain. It has been another tragedy since Jan.9, 2007 when Lan Chengzhang - a journalist from Shanxi Branch of China Trade News was beaten to death during the coverage of an illegal coal mine in Datong, Shanxi Province.
Led by the local villagers, the journalists reported the case to Yaerya Police Station, but they were told to turn to Weijiagou Police Station in charge of the area, where they were surprised to find that journalists from other five media organizations had the same story as being beaten up at the same time and place, and 3 cars destroyed.
Hearing the news, vice editor in chief Li Jiangtao as well as two representatives came to Weijiagou Police Station to see what's going on. At first, Li Rongqing, an instructor, refused to receive them. On the request of the vice chief editor, police began to make inquiries. However, the police didn't show their ID while a policewoman numbered 022269 later identified as deputy supervisor of the station tried to check whether the journalists held Reporters Certificate issued by the authorities.
They were questioned about the press which was irrelevant to the incident for about 2 hours.
The journalists turned to the local government officials for help, but the request was declined.
The journalists from Cyber News came to investigate the harassment experienced by reporters from other media. Journalists were attacked when victim's family members presented them a copy of an agreement about death compensation between the miners' family and Tanyaoguo Coal Mine. It is also reported that one casualty occurred on Feb. 20 and the other two in May. The truth was to be found out by the journalists.
This is a brief translation by CFP, full context in Chinese:
http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2008/06/200806150259.shtml
Original report is from www.315wqchina.com (this site has been shutdown for a few times)
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Quick Times
1 Million Flee from China Floods; 55 Dead
Flooding has killed 55 people and forced more than a million to flee their homes across a stretch of southwestern China, including the earthquake-ravaged Sichuan province, state media reported Sunday.
Direct China-Taiwan Travel Agreed
China and Taiwan have signed historic agreements to establish regular direct flights and allow more mainland tourists to visit the island.
Miracle in Sichuan: The School That Didn’t Fall
A middle school very likely withstood China’s earthquake because the principal pushed to upgrade the building.
Tight Security a Month from Sichuan Quake
A month on from the Sichuan earthquake, Chinese officials have imposed tight security in some of the damaged areas, apparently to prevent protests.
Healing the Wounds of China's Quake, the Very Old Way
When plastic surgeon Waseem Saeed came across a little girl who had lost her leg in the recent Chinese earthquake, he expected a child terrified of doctors and in great pain. But this little girl was sitting in bed reading a book and appeared to be in no pain.
Young Author Gives a Voice to China's Rebel Generation
He is sullen, brooding, 15 years old and now among China's bestselling authors. Tang Chao's paperback, Give Me Back The Dream, a dark tale of unrequited teenage love, conflict with parents and adolescent suicide, reached the top of the bestseller lists last week, a success confirming the coming of age of what has been dubbed the country's 'Generation Z'.
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One Online Journalist Arrested, One Missing in Chengdu
The Committee to Protect Journalists on June 13 informed that Chinese police arrested Internet writer Zeng Hongling in Chengdu, the capital of the earthquake-hit province of Sichuan, on Monday for publishing personal accounts of the earthquake on overseas Chinese-language Web sites, according to news reports and a Chinese press freedom advocate.
Three days later, a well-known Internet publisher and human rights advocate, Huang Qi, went missing in Chengdu on Thursday after his Web site publicized Zeng’s arrest, according to news reports.
Huang, the founder of human rights center and Web site 6-4tianwang, spent five years in prison after authorities accused him of inciting subversion through articles posted on the site in 2000. 6-4tianwang reported on sensitive issues including parents protesting shoddy school construction in the weeks following the earthquake.
News reports have speculated that authorities detained Huang because of his work related to the earthquake. Authorities did not respond to requests for information, according to The Associated Press.
“The arrest and the disappearance of these two reporters suggest that authorities in the earthquake zone are beginning to punish those trying to publish information about the terrible disaster in May,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz. “The government in Beijing must protect journalists in Sichuan who are attacked for their reporting rather than spare local Communist Party officials from embarrassment.”
Police provided Zeng’s family with official notice that she had been detained on a charge of illegally providing intelligence overseas, according to Zhang Yu of the Chinese Independent PEN Center. Zhang had spoken with Huang Shaofu, a close family friend, who originally reported Zeng’s arrest to 6-4tianwang.
Zeng had been staying with Huang Shaofu since her home in Mianyang was damaged in the May 12 earthquake and had used his computer to send three articles about her experience during the disaster abroad, according to Zhang and the account published on 6-4tianwang. The articles, which were critical of Mianyang authorities’ responses to the earthquake, were published and reposted under a penname on several overseas Chinese-language Web sites in late May, Zhang told CPJ.
In one of the articles, Zeng condemned the sycophancy of Mianyang official Tan Li. Several thousand people in China viewed or commented on an online debate which roundly condemned Tan Li for insensitively smiling in a photograph after the earthquake, according to a report by the London-based Guardian on June 1.
The day after 6-4tianwang reported the news about Zeng, the Web site said its own founder, Huang, had been forced into a car with two friends and is still missing. Agence France-Presse identified the two friends as a lawyer and a professor and said none of the three have been reached since they were reported missing.
Huang was the first Web site publisher to be charged with inciting subversion in China. Chinese authorities repeatedly delayed his trial in 2001 while the International Olympic Committee was considering Beijing’s successful bid for the 2008 Olympics. He was released in 2005.
The 6-4tianwang article about Zeng said she was a retired university professor in Mianyang, in northwest Sichuan.
A CPJ report, Falling Short, documents China’s failure to meet press freedom pledges made when the Olympics were awarded in 2001.
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Beijing Backtrack on Free Media Angers IFJ
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed its anger at new restrictions on media as the Olympic Games approach.
A foreign journalist posted in Beijing informed the IFJ that the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) announced in a meeting that it intended to renege on its promises to allow media to broadcast events live from Tiananmen Square.
BOCOG also imposed new requirements such as asking media institutions to submit a detailed route map for broadcasting vehicles. The submissions must account for every day of the Games.
Some broadcasters have been forbidden to import broadcasting vehicles and equipment.
The new restrictions potentially force foreign media organizations to acquire content from Chinese state-owned broadcasters.
Press reports also suggest that China’s authorities are attempting to control and interfere with local people who seek to work as fixers for foreign media.
Further restrictions were imposed this month on foreign journalists reporting from the disaster zone in Sichuan province after the devastating earthquake of May 12. Authorities have denied media access to certain areas, especially collapsed schools which have become the focus of protests by local residents and parents whose children died in the disaster.
The barring of journalists in Sichuan follows heavy vetting of journalists trying to enter Tibet during protests in March.
Local journalists also report to the IFJ that telephone calls continue to be bugged. Liu Shiu, a veteran journalist and freelance writer, was denied work with a financial magazine in Shenzhen in early May and detained by police for 10 hours partly as a result of phone calls intercepted by police.
“China is increasingly at odds with its promises to be open to foreign and local media in the lead-up to the Olympic Games,” said IFJ Asia-Pacific. “China’s Government must show the world and its own citizens that it can keep its promises, including the promise of press freedom.”
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RSF Denounces New Restrictions on Chinese Working with Visiting Journalists
Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the introduction of new rules aimed at reinforcing controls over Chinese "fixers" working for foreign journalists and over all foreigners visiting China during the Olympic Games.
The organization also condemns an increase in police controls of foreign journalists trying to cover protests by parents whose children were killed when schools collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake.
"Any hope of seeing China calmly open up ahead of the Olympic Games is gradually vanishing," Reporters without Borders said. "The authorities have introduced regulations hostile to foreigners, who are suspected of wanting to disrupt the games, and are trying to impose greater controls on Chinese citizens working for foreign reporters. And, on the Propaganda Department's initiative, the government is restricting the work of the Chinese and international press in Sichuan."
"These measures, just two months ahead of the inauguration of the Beijing games, are bordering on paranoia and are a long way from the One World, One Dream slogan. We urge the International Olympic Committee to put pressure on the government to rescind some of these provisions and to ensure that the international press can work freely in Sichuan."
Reporters Without Borders added: "So far, the IOC has not reacted to these archaic regulations, preferring to issue a memo in May reminding national Olympic committees that their athletes should under no circumstances demonstrate at Olympic sites."
Chinese citizens working for foreign news media must now comply with new rules designed to get them to register with the authorities. Reporters Without Borders has obtained a copy of the new rules, which were distributed by the CIECCO, a state entity that is supposed to help foreign companies, including news media, to find Chinese employees.
The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) has been insisting since January 2007 that the foreign media recruit professionals chosen by official intermediaries as translators. The latest rules want all Chinese working for the foreign media to be registered and suggest that the authorities should "select and name appropriate candidates" for the foreign media.
If foreign journalists want to propose their own candidates, they must provide an ID, a curriculum vitae, evidence of no criminal record and a medical certificate. And a contract must be signed between employer and employee.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China told Reporters Without Borders that "hiring and registering assistants through government service agencies potentially increases bureaucracy, expense and oversight by the authorities." The FCCC hopes the foreign media will eventually be able to hire Chinese as journalists, photographers or cameramen, but for the time being that is not allowed.
Reporters Without Borders has also learned of a directive issued by the BOCOG media centre's visa division telling journalists to submit precise information about coverage plans in China, including the places they want to visit and the people they want to interview, in order to obtain a J-2 visa, which is for media personnel who want to arrive before the 8 August 2008 start of the games. The BOCOG also requires a letter from an employer, which effectively eliminates freelancers.
These new provisions come at a time when the issuing of multiple-entry visas is being restricted and obtaining tourist or business visas is taking much longer, even through Hong Kong. The government refuses to explain this tougher policy, which seems to be linked to fear of demonstrations during the games.
The BOCOG issued a set of guidelines for foreigners visiting the games on 2 June. In a question-and-answer format and so far only in Chinese, the guidelines tell foreigners they "must respect Chinese laws while in China and must not harm China's national security or damage the social order."
They say "terrorists," sex workers, drug traffickers, people suffering from AIDS or tuberculosis and "subversives" are banned from entering China. Some of the guidelines directly target those who would like to demonstrate during the games. "Public gatherings, marches and demonstrations cannot take place without prior permission from the police." They also restrict freedom of opinion, forbidding foreigners from bringing with them documents, disks or audio recordings critical of China.
Because of the anger of the parents of children killed in schools in Sichuan, the authorities have tended to obstruct the work of the foreign media in the province. On 6 June, two Agence France-Presse journalists were prevented from entered Wufu, a city where demonstrations took place after a primary school collapsed.
Foreign reporters were briefly detained and expelled on 5 June from Juyuan and Hanwang, two towns where schools collapsed. Photographers were removed from a demonstration by about 100 parents in Dujiangyan on 3 June, and a reporter and photographer from the Japanese news agency Kyodo were detained for several hours. According to the FCCC, two Dutch journalists were stopped by the police when they tried to go to Dujiangyan.
The Chinese press has been forbidden to cover the collapsed schools story freely. Chinese journalists told the "New York Times" that the order came from Beijing. The website of the Hong Kong-based China Media Project ( http://cmp.hku.hk ) reported that the Guangdong province Communist Party's propaganda chief ordered the local media to pull their journalists out of Sichuan. The site also reported that Li Changchun, the Communist Party's propaganda chief, went to Sichuan.
The public security department has been told to put a stop to the "illegal gatherings" and to pressure the families of victims to stop talking to the foreign press. State media propaganda continues to praise the government's efforts. State-owned CCTV's website even went so far as to portray a demonstration in homage to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989 as an homage to the victims of the 12 May earthquake.
Finally, BOCOG intransigence on security issues is giving rise to tension with international TV stations that acquired broadcasting rights. The Associated Press reported on 8 June that there were angry tensions at a meeting in Beijing at the end of May between the BOCOG, the IOC and international TV stations over China's refusal to permit live coverage of events in certain places such as Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, and delays in granting permission for broadcast equipment.
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Human Rights Watch has issued its report to the organization's council expressing special concern about four countries, including China.
What follows is what HRW had to say about human rights, or the lack thereof, in that country:
"Since last addressing the Council about the Chinese government's use of excessive force in response to the March protests in Tibet, we have seen dozens of Tibetans tried with no due process, and a denial of access to that region by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and special rapporteurs.
"Prominent civil rights lawyers have been stripped of their licenses as a result of their offer to defend Tibetans.
"Foreign journalists continue to be subject to abuses ranging from death threats to arbitrary detention despite new regulations granting them greater freedoms to report, and the relevant government agencies have done little or nothing to halt these abuses.
"In the months before the Beijing Olympics, the government continues to violate international and domestic law by expelling from Beijing those it considers "undesirable," as well as returning refugees from North Korea and elsewhere.
"D 
