Interesting Times Has Moved!
posted by Marco Polo at
Monday, July 28, 2008
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Monday, July 28, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
If You Are Expecting Dissent During the Olympics, Think Again
Paramilitary police in Beijing are standing by to "resolutely" put down any demonstrations of dissent during the Games, showing once more that the regime will not allow anything to spoil their two weeks in the sun.
Washington Post reporter Edward Cody informs that China's Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu told the official press that "preventing terrorism" and "preventing protests" are equally important.
According to his article, Meng told his security forces they must “resolutely prevent severe violence and terrorist incidents, resolutely prevent severe political incidents that could affect state security and social stability and resolutely prevent large-scale mass incidents to make sure the objective of a safe Olympic Games is reached.”
For the regime, the key phrase is "large-scale mass incidents," meaning "protest, demonstrations and riots."
Cody explains that "the instructions were delivered during a teleconference to a total of 49,000 troops from 873 People's Armed Police units scheduled to be on duty in Beijing and five other cities hosting Olympic events."
Let the Games begin.
Read more!
Washington Post reporter Edward Cody informs that China's Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu told the official press that "preventing terrorism" and "preventing protests" are equally important.
According to his article, Meng told his security forces they must “resolutely prevent severe violence and terrorist incidents, resolutely prevent severe political incidents that could affect state security and social stability and resolutely prevent large-scale mass incidents to make sure the objective of a safe Olympic Games is reached.”
For the regime, the key phrase is "large-scale mass incidents," meaning "protest, demonstrations and riots."
Cody explains that "the instructions were delivered during a teleconference to a total of 49,000 troops from 873 People's Armed Police units scheduled to be on duty in Beijing and five other cities hosting Olympic events."
Let the Games begin.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, July 26, 2008
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Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The New York Times Blasts an Olympic Disgrace
The New York Times editorial page published a well-deserved spanking for the Olympic corporate sponsors, the US and other governments, and, especially, the International Olympic Committee for letting China get away with breaking its promises of improving its human rights record.
"To win the right to host the Games," the editorial reads, "Beijing promised to expand press freedoms for foreign reporters and implied that opening China to the world would help expand human rights more generally. We will never know whether China’s leaders intended to keep their word. What we do know is that the International Olympic Committee, corporate sponsors and governments around the world should have held China to its word. They have not, and China has read their silence as complicity."
The piece goes on to list the endless human rights violations the regime has committed in recent months, including jailing critics, denying visas to visiting journalists and silencing critics of the "shoddy construction that caused schools to crumble" during the Sichuan earthquake, among others.
The editorial correctly places most of the blame for this Olympic disgrace squarely on the shoulders of the IOC.
"Apart from China, no one deserves criticism more than the International Olympic Committee, the so-called guardian of the Olympic movement, which has indulged Beijing at every turn," it says. "The committee still has time to put in place minimal protections — like a 24-hour hot line for journalists to report violations of media freedoms. Even with all of the intimidation, human rights advocates (and maybe some athletes) will likely try to use the Games to protest China’s repression. Beijing needs to know that the world will be watching how it handles that bit of reality TV."
We will be watching all right.
Read more!
"To win the right to host the Games," the editorial reads, "Beijing promised to expand press freedoms for foreign reporters and implied that opening China to the world would help expand human rights more generally. We will never know whether China’s leaders intended to keep their word. What we do know is that the International Olympic Committee, corporate sponsors and governments around the world should have held China to its word. They have not, and China has read their silence as complicity."
The piece goes on to list the endless human rights violations the regime has committed in recent months, including jailing critics, denying visas to visiting journalists and silencing critics of the "shoddy construction that caused schools to crumble" during the Sichuan earthquake, among others.
The editorial correctly places most of the blame for this Olympic disgrace squarely on the shoulders of the IOC.
"Apart from China, no one deserves criticism more than the International Olympic Committee, the so-called guardian of the Olympic movement, which has indulged Beijing at every turn," it says. "The committee still has time to put in place minimal protections — like a 24-hour hot line for journalists to report violations of media freedoms. Even with all of the intimidation, human rights advocates (and maybe some athletes) will likely try to use the Games to protest China’s repression. Beijing needs to know that the world will be watching how it handles that bit of reality TV."
We will be watching all right.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
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Global Corporations Are Cheering for China
And speaking of The New York Times, its Beijing Olympics Blog published a complete collection of advertisements whose common theme is to cheer for China in this Olympic year.
McDonald's, Nike, Pepsi (including a red can for the "Red Team") and many others have joined the chorus of rah-rahs for the home team hoping to capture China's burgeoning domestic market.
"The campaigns for Western companies are part of an advertising blitz the likes of which this ostensibly communist nation has never seen," the article says. "Ads are papered over bus shelters, projected on giant outdoor television screens and plastered on billboards. Commercials even flicker at commuters as they zoom through subway tunnels.
"China, already the world’s second-largest advertising market, after the United States, is a dream for consumer product companies. 'For most international brands here, China is the growth market for the next 10 years,' said Jonathan Chajet, strategic director at Interbrand, which consults on brands.
"A record 63 companies have become sponsors or partners of the Beijing Olympics. Olympic-related advertising in China could reach $4 billion to $6 billion this year, according to CSM, a Beijing marketing research firm."
The Games were never intended to be the perfect occasion for the regime to improve its dismal human rights record, which they promised they would to the IOC. The Games' fundamental purpose was to prop up the People's Republic of Capitalism.
Mission accomplished.
Read more!
McDonald's, Nike, Pepsi (including a red can for the "Red Team") and many others have joined the chorus of rah-rahs for the home team hoping to capture China's burgeoning domestic market.
"The campaigns for Western companies are part of an advertising blitz the likes of which this ostensibly communist nation has never seen," the article says. "Ads are papered over bus shelters, projected on giant outdoor television screens and plastered on billboards. Commercials even flicker at commuters as they zoom through subway tunnels.
"China, already the world’s second-largest advertising market, after the United States, is a dream for consumer product companies. 'For most international brands here, China is the growth market for the next 10 years,' said Jonathan Chajet, strategic director at Interbrand, which consults on brands.
"A record 63 companies have become sponsors or partners of the Beijing Olympics. Olympic-related advertising in China could reach $4 billion to $6 billion this year, according to CSM, a Beijing marketing research firm."
The Games were never intended to be the perfect occasion for the regime to improve its dismal human rights record, which they promised they would to the IOC. The Games' fundamental purpose was to prop up the People's Republic of Capitalism.
Mission accomplished.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
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Saturday, July 19, 2008
Patriotic Chinese Venting on Internet
"When I Googled my name in Chinese, I got 368,000 hits, most of them referring to me as a 'traitor who sold out on our country' or a 'double-crosser,'" Wang Qiangyuan, a Chinese student at Duke University, a prestigious U.S. university in Durham, N.C., told The Yomiuri Shimbun over the telephone in early July.
When the torch relay for the Beijing Olympics was held in San Francisco on April 9, pro-Tibet American students and pro-Beijing Chinese students squared off on the university's campus.
Wang attempted to prod the two groups into having dialogue by cutting in front of them and shouting out, "Let's talk!"
While the freshman was by no means a supporter of the pro-independence movement for Tibet, she wanted both sides to act calmly and discuss their differences.
However, other Chinese on the campus did not take her side. Many of them surrounded her, and she was asked, "Are you really Chinese?"
Read the rest of this Yomiuri Shimbun article here.
Read more!
When the torch relay for the Beijing Olympics was held in San Francisco on April 9, pro-Tibet American students and pro-Beijing Chinese students squared off on the university's campus.
Wang attempted to prod the two groups into having dialogue by cutting in front of them and shouting out, "Let's talk!"
While the freshman was by no means a supporter of the pro-independence movement for Tibet, she wanted both sides to act calmly and discuss their differences.
However, other Chinese on the campus did not take her side. Many of them surrounded her, and she was asked, "Are you really Chinese?"
Read the rest of this Yomiuri Shimbun article here.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, July 19, 2008
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Chinese Government's Control of Internet Stiffens
China Free Press reports that the Chinese government has stiffened its already overwhelming control and censorship of the Internet.
In a little more than 250 words, an edict issued by the authorities has eliminated any remaining doubts about whether the Beijing regime was going to fulfill its promise to the International Olympic Committee that it would improve its human rights record in exchange for organizing the Games.
Bad behavior has indeed been rewarded in a most Olympic way. Here is the edict, entitled "Urgent Notice," in all its gory details:
To ensure the smooth operation of the Internet during the Beijing Olympics, higher authorities have ordered that websites be monitored according to the following criteria:
1. Carefully check website content, update website keyword filter, filter all content, monitor websites according to but not limited by the following criteria, or DNS.COM.CN will shut down the website without prior notice:
a. any pornographic content
b. gambling, lottery activity, etc.
c. prohibited goods (firearms, spam machines, explosives, hallucinogens, invoices, etc.)
d. violate the country's peaceful unification policy, oppose the government, etc.)
e. all other activity forbidden by the country's laws and regulations
To the websites that violate the above strictures and are closed, we will not be lenient. For mistaken decisions, please accord with the agreement on filtering keywords and fax it to DNS.COM.CN service department (service department fax: 4006830000-5757), and a service person will investigate and resolve the problem.
2. From July 16-September 20 2008, if junk mail is sent and complained about, the offending website will be shut down without prior notice.
To protect your ability to operate, we strongly recommend that you strictly monitor your website's content and remove any illegal content; if you have discussion forums, we recommend you shut down those forums, if not shut down, we advise that you remove anonymous content and implement 24 hour monitoring of your site so as to remove illegal content immediately.
We hope that everyone cooperates and carefully monitors their own site, remove all illegal content and let's all make sure the Beijing Olympics are successful.
Read more!
In a little more than 250 words, an edict issued by the authorities has eliminated any remaining doubts about whether the Beijing regime was going to fulfill its promise to the International Olympic Committee that it would improve its human rights record in exchange for organizing the Games.
Bad behavior has indeed been rewarded in a most Olympic way. Here is the edict, entitled "Urgent Notice," in all its gory details:
To ensure the smooth operation of the Internet during the Beijing Olympics, higher authorities have ordered that websites be monitored according to the following criteria:
1. Carefully check website content, update website keyword filter, filter all content, monitor websites according to but not limited by the following criteria, or DNS.COM.CN will shut down the website without prior notice:
a. any pornographic content
b. gambling, lottery activity, etc.
c. prohibited goods (firearms, spam machines, explosives, hallucinogens, invoices, etc.)
d. violate the country's peaceful unification policy, oppose the government, etc.)
e. all other activity forbidden by the country's laws and regulations
To the websites that violate the above strictures and are closed, we will not be lenient. For mistaken decisions, please accord with the agreement on filtering keywords and fax it to DNS.COM.CN service department (service department fax: 4006830000-5757), and a service person will investigate and resolve the problem.
2. From July 16-September 20 2008, if junk mail is sent and complained about, the offending website will be shut down without prior notice.
To protect your ability to operate, we strongly recommend that you strictly monitor your website's content and remove any illegal content; if you have discussion forums, we recommend you shut down those forums, if not shut down, we advise that you remove anonymous content and implement 24 hour monitoring of your site so as to remove illegal content immediately.
We hope that everyone cooperates and carefully monitors their own site, remove all illegal content and let's all make sure the Beijing Olympics are successful.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, July 19, 2008
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China Is Growing Unfriendly to Foreigners
HONG KONG -- Brad Eddington arrived in Shanghai on a whim seven years ago and fell in love with the place. He got a job teaching English to kindergartners at a private school, an apartment in the trendy French Concession district, and a girlfriend. And even though he was on a visitor's visa he had to renew every year, he considered China his new home.
That changed this month. After several frustrating weeks of trying to negotiate China's new visa policies, getting exiled to Hong Kong and failing to gain permission to reenter the mainland, Eddington gave up.
Thousands of other foreign residents are also finding China far less hospitable than it once was because of visa restrictions tightened ahead of the Olympics and reported increasing hostility toward outsiders.
"I thought things would get easier the longer I stayed, but it's the opposite," said Eddington, 36, an Australian. "China's a different place than when I first came." The controversy over Tibet and the Olympic torch relay "may have surfaced feelings that had long been there" about foreigners.
Read the rest of this Washington Post article here.
Read more!
That changed this month. After several frustrating weeks of trying to negotiate China's new visa policies, getting exiled to Hong Kong and failing to gain permission to reenter the mainland, Eddington gave up.
Thousands of other foreign residents are also finding China far less hospitable than it once was because of visa restrictions tightened ahead of the Olympics and reported increasing hostility toward outsiders.
"I thought things would get easier the longer I stayed, but it's the opposite," said Eddington, 36, an Australian. "China's a different place than when I first came." The controversy over Tibet and the Olympic torch relay "may have surfaced feelings that had long been there" about foreigners.
Read the rest of this Washington Post article here.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, July 19, 2008
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Across China, Security Instead Of Celebration
YENGISHAHAR, China -- Shortly after dawn on July 9, the local government here bused several thousand students and office workers into a public square and lined them up in front of a vocational school. As the spectators watched, witnesses said, three prisoners were brought out. Then, an execution squad fired rifles at the three point-blank, killing them on the spot.
The young men had been convicted of having connections to terrorist plots, which authorities said were part of a campaign aimed at disrupting the Beijing Olympics by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an underground separatist organization here in the vast Xinjiang region of western China. The group has long fought for independence on behalf of the region's Muslim Uighur inhabitants.
The public execution of the men was a dramatic example of the massive, unforgiving security operation that has been mounted in China to protect the Beijing Games from what Communist Party authorities describe as an urgent threat of violence and anti-government protest.
"Especially as the Beijing Olympic Games draw near, a range of anti-China forces and hostile forces are striving by any means and redoubling efforts to engage in trouble-making and sabotage," Yang Huanning, a vice minister of public security and an anti-terrorism specialist, said in a declaration to the Public Security Bureau's newspaper.
Read the rest of this Washington Post article here.
Read more!
The young men had been convicted of having connections to terrorist plots, which authorities said were part of a campaign aimed at disrupting the Beijing Olympics by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an underground separatist organization here in the vast Xinjiang region of western China. The group has long fought for independence on behalf of the region's Muslim Uighur inhabitants.
The public execution of the men was a dramatic example of the massive, unforgiving security operation that has been mounted in China to protect the Beijing Games from what Communist Party authorities describe as an urgent threat of violence and anti-government protest.
"Especially as the Beijing Olympic Games draw near, a range of anti-China forces and hostile forces are striving by any means and redoubling efforts to engage in trouble-making and sabotage," Yang Huanning, a vice minister of public security and an anti-terrorism specialist, said in a declaration to the Public Security Bureau's newspaper.
Read the rest of this Washington Post article here.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, July 19, 2008
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Beijing Olympics Already a Success?
As 8-8-08 rapidly approaches and regardless of an awful year so far for China, the Games do look like a big upcoming success for the organizing committee.
The run-up to the Olympics, with its uprisings, disastrous torch run, earthquake and so many other calamities the regime has have to endure, seems to look very promising indeed.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, "In addition to thousands of athletes, more than 80 heads of state and about 30,000 members of the media, another group is expected to invade Beijing in force for the Olympics next month: corporate executives."
The Olympic organizers, along with the Chinese regime, are already high-fiving one another after "the number of chief executives planning to attend the Beijing Games is likely to rival the number at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which often attracts more than 1,000 business leaders," the article says.
The who-is-who of the Corporate World is planning to attend the Games.
"Many executives see the Olympics as a can't-miss event for companies that do business in China, or hope to. Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., is set to attend, for instance, as is General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner," the article states.
In fact, two of the very few problems organizers have to deal with right now in this regard are clearing Beijing's airspace in order to make room for all the corporate bigwigs who are planning to land in the capital and granting front-row seats for all of them. Keep in mind tickets for the opening ceremony are now going for $50,000 in the "grey" market.
What in the world was the International Olympic Committee thinking when the Chinese government promised them they would fulfill their promise to "substantially improve their human rights record."
What it's obvious now is that that record will be broken many times in these Games.
Read more!
The run-up to the Olympics, with its uprisings, disastrous torch run, earthquake and so many other calamities the regime has have to endure, seems to look very promising indeed.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, "In addition to thousands of athletes, more than 80 heads of state and about 30,000 members of the media, another group is expected to invade Beijing in force for the Olympics next month: corporate executives."
The Olympic organizers, along with the Chinese regime, are already high-fiving one another after "the number of chief executives planning to attend the Beijing Games is likely to rival the number at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which often attracts more than 1,000 business leaders," the article says.
The who-is-who of the Corporate World is planning to attend the Games.
"Many executives see the Olympics as a can't-miss event for companies that do business in China, or hope to. Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., is set to attend, for instance, as is General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner," the article states.
In fact, two of the very few problems organizers have to deal with right now in this regard are clearing Beijing's airspace in order to make room for all the corporate bigwigs who are planning to land in the capital and granting front-row seats for all of them. Keep in mind tickets for the opening ceremony are now going for $50,000 in the "grey" market.
What in the world was the International Olympic Committee thinking when the Chinese government promised them they would fulfill their promise to "substantially improve their human rights record."
What it's obvious now is that that record will be broken many times in these Games.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Thursday, July 17, 2008
0 Comments
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
CPJ Meets with IOC Head to Discuss China Concerns
Lausanne, Switzerland — A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists met today with the head of the International Olympic Committee and expressed its concern about a variety of press freedom issues surrounding this year’s Beijing Olympics, from the ongoing harassment of international reporters to the jailing of 26 Chinese journalists.
CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger and Executive Director Joel Simon told IOC President Jacques Rogge that China must make significant progress to meet the commitment it made to allow journalists to freely cover the Games.
Despite recent advances on issues such as satellite feeds and live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square, international journalists in Beijing continue to report incidents of harassment and say their sources are often intimidated. Chinese journalists operate under a broad array of restrictions.
The delegation also told Rogge that CPJ would be launching a 24-hour hotline to assist journalists who encounter problems reporting in China during the Games. CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz will be based in Hong Kong. Dietz was not granted a visa to travel to Beijing.
Also representing the IOC were Chief of Staff Christophe De Kepper and Communications Director Giselle Davies.
When the IOC awarded the Games to Beijing in 2001, China specifically promised that “there will be no restrictions on journalists in covering the Olympic Games.” Wang Wei, a vice president for the Beijing organizing committee, told a press conference on July 12, 2001, the day before the Games were given to Beijing, “We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China.”
CPJ has documented the failure of China so far to live up to this standard in its special report, Falling Short: Olympic Promises Go Unfilled as China Falters on Press Freedom. The 78-page report, updated in June, explains China’s vast system of media control and the pressure the government continues to exert on Chinese and foreign journalists.
With the August 8 opening ceremonies less than five weeks away, China continues to impose restrictive media policies. Despite a January 2007 easement of rules on foreign journalists, which was supposed to allow them to report more freely, foreign reporters say they are still unable to travel to Tibet or the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Correspondents report that many of the people they have interviewed have been visited subsequently by security personnel.
CPJ records show that 26 journalists are in jail for their work in China. That is more than in any other country, a distinction that China has held since 1999. Intensive government censorship remains in place, with news outlet subject to strict orders from the country’s Central Propaganda Department.
Read more!
CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger and Executive Director Joel Simon told IOC President Jacques Rogge that China must make significant progress to meet the commitment it made to allow journalists to freely cover the Games.
Despite recent advances on issues such as satellite feeds and live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square, international journalists in Beijing continue to report incidents of harassment and say their sources are often intimidated. Chinese journalists operate under a broad array of restrictions.
The delegation also told Rogge that CPJ would be launching a 24-hour hotline to assist journalists who encounter problems reporting in China during the Games. CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz will be based in Hong Kong. Dietz was not granted a visa to travel to Beijing.
Also representing the IOC were Chief of Staff Christophe De Kepper and Communications Director Giselle Davies.
When the IOC awarded the Games to Beijing in 2001, China specifically promised that “there will be no restrictions on journalists in covering the Olympic Games.” Wang Wei, a vice president for the Beijing organizing committee, told a press conference on July 12, 2001, the day before the Games were given to Beijing, “We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China.”
CPJ has documented the failure of China so far to live up to this standard in its special report, Falling Short: Olympic Promises Go Unfilled as China Falters on Press Freedom. The 78-page report, updated in June, explains China’s vast system of media control and the pressure the government continues to exert on Chinese and foreign journalists.
With the August 8 opening ceremonies less than five weeks away, China continues to impose restrictive media policies. Despite a January 2007 easement of rules on foreign journalists, which was supposed to allow them to report more freely, foreign reporters say they are still unable to travel to Tibet or the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Correspondents report that many of the people they have interviewed have been visited subsequently by security personnel.
CPJ records show that 26 journalists are in jail for their work in China. That is more than in any other country, a distinction that China has held since 1999. Intensive government censorship remains in place, with news outlet subject to strict orders from the country’s Central Propaganda Department.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Rights Crack Down Intensifies in China As Games Approach
Only one month before the Beijing Games open, the Chinese authorities have significantly escalated and broadened their systematic crackdown on rights defense activities, religious and cultural expression, and critical voices, informs Human Rights in China (HRIC).
The efforts of the authorities to maintain control now include targeting health care activists, religious practitioners, and parents grieving for their dead children. The month of June in particular saw an upswing in the instance and severity of crackdowns.
"With thirty days to go before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games, we are witnessing the proliferation of serious human rights abuses committed under the banner of the official 'Olympics Stability Drive,'" said HRIC Executive Director Sharon Hom.
In recent weeks, reported incidents and ongoing crackdowns included:
* The ongoing severe restriction of rights defense lawyers, including delaying their renewal of licenses, limiting their ability to meet with detained clients, and preventing a group of prominent rights defense lawyers from having dinner in June with two visiting U.S. Congressmen. Lawyers harassed by the authorities include Cheng Hai (程海), Guo Yan (郭艳), Jiang Tianyong (江天勇), Mo Hongluo (莫宏洛), Tang Jingling (唐荆陵), Teng Biao (滕彪), Xie Yanyi (谢燕益), and Zhang Jiankang (张鉴康).[1]
* The blocking of access in China to “In the Hepatitis B Camp” (肝胆相照论坛) (http://bbs.hbvhbv.com), the world’s largest Chinese-language online forum offering counseling and support to Hepatitis B sufferers, with over 300,000 registered users in China. Public health activist Lu Jun (陆军), the moderator of “In the Hepatitis B Camp,” was harassed and questioned by police as he returned home to China on July 3 from a trip to Hong Kong and the United States.
* The suppression of demonstrations by the grieving parents of children who died when their schools collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake. Moreover, media coverage has also been controlled, and people trying to investigate official corruption relating to the collapsed schools have been harassed and detained, including rights activist Huang Qi (黄琦), who ran the Tianwang Human Rights Center (http://www.64tianwang.com). Huang had visited the disaster zone and published news about the plight of parents who lost children in the disaster.[2]
* The detention of retired university staff Zeng Hongling (曾宏玲) on June 9 on suspicion of subversion after she published essays on overseas Chinese websites linking the collapse of school buildings with corruption. Grieving parents in Mianyang (绵阳) raised protests similarly blaming government corruption and neglect for the deaths of their children in collapsed school buildings.
* The detention of Liu Shaokun (刘绍坤), a teacher of Guanghan Middle School, Deyang City, Sichuan Province (四川省德阳市广汉中学), on June 25. The school’s principal was informed that Liu was detained for disseminating rumors and destroying social order. Liu’s family was later told that he was being investigated on suspicion of the crime of inciting subversion. Liu had travelled to the Shifang (什邡) area, taken photos of collapsed school buildings, and put them online. He had also expressed his anger at “the shoddy tofu buildings” in a media interview.
* The harassment and monitoring of those seeking to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 1989 June 4 Crackdown. On June 3 and 4, activists, lawyers, and other mourners were detained, escorted home, and closely monitored, impeding their ability to publicly mourn those killed and wounded on June 4, 1989. Those harassed include Chen Defu (陈德富), Chen Xi (陈西), Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), and Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强). In late May, the newly-launched website of the Tiananmen Mothers had been blocked, already signaling an intolerance for any efforts to disseminate information about the 1989 crackdown, including the number of victims.[3]
* The beating of leading Shenzhen consumer rights activist Chen Shuwei (陈书伟) on June 9. Chen was reportedly beaten by seven or eight unidentified men for “asking too many questions.”
* Zhang Qing (张青), the wife of the imprisoned rights defender Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), disclosed in an open letter that their children were refused admission to school. In an open letter to Premier Wen Jiabao on June 29, she appealed for help and urged that her children not be punished or discriminated against.[4]
* The harassment of Beijing-based house church pastor Hua Huiqi (华惠棋) on July 1, 2008. Police from the Chongwen District Branch Office of the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and the State Security Bureau in Beijing, accompanied by more than 30 other people, forced open the door to Hua’s home, threatening him and beating his family members.[5]
* The ongoing repression in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and surrounding areas following the violent crackdown in protests in March. Reports suggest more than 1,000 monks are still held in detention centers, and nuns have been expelled from their nunnery for refusing to participate in “patriotic education” campaigns.
HRIC is gravely concerned by the severity of repression by authorities in the months and weeks leading up to the Beijing Games, and will continue to monitor and report on the ongoing Olympics-related crackdown, as well as the human rights situation post-Olympics.
Read more!
The efforts of the authorities to maintain control now include targeting health care activists, religious practitioners, and parents grieving for their dead children. The month of June in particular saw an upswing in the instance and severity of crackdowns.
"With thirty days to go before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games, we are witnessing the proliferation of serious human rights abuses committed under the banner of the official 'Olympics Stability Drive,'" said HRIC Executive Director Sharon Hom.
In recent weeks, reported incidents and ongoing crackdowns included:
* The ongoing severe restriction of rights defense lawyers, including delaying their renewal of licenses, limiting their ability to meet with detained clients, and preventing a group of prominent rights defense lawyers from having dinner in June with two visiting U.S. Congressmen. Lawyers harassed by the authorities include Cheng Hai (程海), Guo Yan (郭艳), Jiang Tianyong (江天勇), Mo Hongluo (莫宏洛), Tang Jingling (唐荆陵), Teng Biao (滕彪), Xie Yanyi (谢燕益), and Zhang Jiankang (张鉴康).[1]
* The blocking of access in China to “In the Hepatitis B Camp” (肝胆相照论坛) (http://bbs.hbvhbv.com), the world’s largest Chinese-language online forum offering counseling and support to Hepatitis B sufferers, with over 300,000 registered users in China. Public health activist Lu Jun (陆军), the moderator of “In the Hepatitis B Camp,” was harassed and questioned by police as he returned home to China on July 3 from a trip to Hong Kong and the United States.
* The suppression of demonstrations by the grieving parents of children who died when their schools collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake. Moreover, media coverage has also been controlled, and people trying to investigate official corruption relating to the collapsed schools have been harassed and detained, including rights activist Huang Qi (黄琦), who ran the Tianwang Human Rights Center (http://www.64tianwang.com). Huang had visited the disaster zone and published news about the plight of parents who lost children in the disaster.[2]
* The detention of retired university staff Zeng Hongling (曾宏玲) on June 9 on suspicion of subversion after she published essays on overseas Chinese websites linking the collapse of school buildings with corruption. Grieving parents in Mianyang (绵阳) raised protests similarly blaming government corruption and neglect for the deaths of their children in collapsed school buildings.
* The detention of Liu Shaokun (刘绍坤), a teacher of Guanghan Middle School, Deyang City, Sichuan Province (四川省德阳市广汉中学), on June 25. The school’s principal was informed that Liu was detained for disseminating rumors and destroying social order. Liu’s family was later told that he was being investigated on suspicion of the crime of inciting subversion. Liu had travelled to the Shifang (什邡) area, taken photos of collapsed school buildings, and put them online. He had also expressed his anger at “the shoddy tofu buildings” in a media interview.
* The harassment and monitoring of those seeking to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 1989 June 4 Crackdown. On June 3 and 4, activists, lawyers, and other mourners were detained, escorted home, and closely monitored, impeding their ability to publicly mourn those killed and wounded on June 4, 1989. Those harassed include Chen Defu (陈德富), Chen Xi (陈西), Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), and Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强). In late May, the newly-launched website of the Tiananmen Mothers had been blocked, already signaling an intolerance for any efforts to disseminate information about the 1989 crackdown, including the number of victims.[3]
* The beating of leading Shenzhen consumer rights activist Chen Shuwei (陈书伟) on June 9. Chen was reportedly beaten by seven or eight unidentified men for “asking too many questions.”
* Zhang Qing (张青), the wife of the imprisoned rights defender Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), disclosed in an open letter that their children were refused admission to school. In an open letter to Premier Wen Jiabao on June 29, she appealed for help and urged that her children not be punished or discriminated against.[4]
* The harassment of Beijing-based house church pastor Hua Huiqi (华惠棋) on July 1, 2008. Police from the Chongwen District Branch Office of the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and the State Security Bureau in Beijing, accompanied by more than 30 other people, forced open the door to Hua’s home, threatening him and beating his family members.[5]
* The ongoing repression in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and surrounding areas following the violent crackdown in protests in March. Reports suggest more than 1,000 monks are still held in detention centers, and nuns have been expelled from their nunnery for refusing to participate in “patriotic education” campaigns.
HRIC is gravely concerned by the severity of repression by authorities in the months and weeks leading up to the Beijing Games, and will continue to monitor and report on the ongoing Olympics-related crackdown, as well as the human rights situation post-Olympics.
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posted by Marco Polo at
Monday, July 14, 2008
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China’s Guerrilla War for the Web
They have been called the “Fifty Cent Party,” the “red vests” and the “red vanguard.”
But China’s growing armies of Web commentators—instigated, trained and financed by party organizations—have just one mission: to safeguard the interests of the Communist Party by infiltrating and policing a rapidly growing Chinese Internet. They set out to neutralize undesirable public opinion by pushing pro-Party views through chat rooms and Web forums, reporting dangerous content to authorities.
By some estimates, these commentary teams now comprise as many as 280,000 members nationwide, and they show just how serious China’s leaders are about the political challenges posed by the Web. More importantly, they offer tangible clues about China’s next generation of information controls—what President Hu Jintao last month called “a new pattern of public-opinion guidance.”
It was around 2005 that party leaders started getting more creative about how to influence public opinion on the Internet. The problem was that China’s traditional propaganda apparatus was geared toward suppression of news and information.
Read the rest of this Far Eastern Economic Review article here.
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But China’s growing armies of Web commentators—instigated, trained and financed by party organizations—have just one mission: to safeguard the interests of the Communist Party by infiltrating and policing a rapidly growing Chinese Internet. They set out to neutralize undesirable public opinion by pushing pro-Party views through chat rooms and Web forums, reporting dangerous content to authorities.
By some estimates, these commentary teams now comprise as many as 280,000 members nationwide, and they show just how serious China’s leaders are about the political challenges posed by the Web. More importantly, they offer tangible clues about China’s next generation of information controls—what President Hu Jintao last month called “a new pattern of public-opinion guidance.”
It was around 2005 that party leaders started getting more creative about how to influence public opinion on the Internet. The problem was that China’s traditional propaganda apparatus was geared toward suppression of news and information.
Read the rest of this Far Eastern Economic Review article here.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Monday, July 14, 2008
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China's Media Freedom Is in Name Only
Chinese authorities have ordered a 10-second broadcast delay to avoid "undesirable" incidents — such as protests or anti-Chinese slogans — being seen by the domestic masses, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao daily, a Chinese-language newspaper.
But technically the 4 billion viewers around the world should be able to see everything live — including any protests — under China's promise to give the foreign media "complete freedom to report when they come to China". This was to include uncensored internet access.
But with only 25 days until the opening of the Games, China's pledge of media freedom is sounding distinctly Orwellian.
Read the rest of this Sydney Morning Herald article .
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
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But technically the 4 billion viewers around the world should be able to see everything live — including any protests — under China's promise to give the foreign media "complete freedom to report when they come to China". This was to include uncensored internet access.
But with only 25 days until the opening of the Games, China's pledge of media freedom is sounding distinctly Orwellian.
Read the rest of this Sydney Morning Herald article .
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Monday, July 14, 2008
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China Is Losing the Human Rights Race
When China won the right to host the 2008 Olympics, it was due in good part to human rights pledges. These included a specific commitment of “complete freedom” to report for the global media. Beijing made these pledges after losing its first bid to host in 1993, largely because of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
In his final presentation to win the Games, Beijing Mayor and Bidding Committee president Liu Qi proclaimed that winning the Olympics would “benefit the further development of our human rights cause.”
Yet the past year has seen a steady deterioration of human rights in China. Outspoken human rights leaders have been jailed or put under house arrest, lawyers taking sensitive cases (such as those of Tibetan protestors) threatened and attacked, petitioners kicked out of Beijing, and journalists (domestic and foreign) harassed and detained.
It is a far cry from the early hopes of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). A leading IOC member, Dick Pound, said that Beijing’s “presentation to IOC members was an acknowledgment of the concerns expressed in many parts of the world regarding its record on human rights, coupled with a pre-emptive suggestion that the IOC could help increase progress on such matters by awarding the Games to China.”
Read the rest of this Times Online opinion piece by Human Rights Watch Media Director Minky Worden here.
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In his final presentation to win the Games, Beijing Mayor and Bidding Committee president Liu Qi proclaimed that winning the Olympics would “benefit the further development of our human rights cause.”
Yet the past year has seen a steady deterioration of human rights in China. Outspoken human rights leaders have been jailed or put under house arrest, lawyers taking sensitive cases (such as those of Tibetan protestors) threatened and attacked, petitioners kicked out of Beijing, and journalists (domestic and foreign) harassed and detained.
It is a far cry from the early hopes of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). A leading IOC member, Dick Pound, said that Beijing’s “presentation to IOC members was an acknowledgment of the concerns expressed in many parts of the world regarding its record on human rights, coupled with a pre-emptive suggestion that the IOC could help increase progress on such matters by awarding the Games to China.”
Read the rest of this Times Online opinion piece by Human Rights Watch Media Director Minky Worden here.
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posted by Marco Polo at
Monday, July 14, 2008
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Ad Campaign Triggers Fury Storm in China
In recent weeks, Omnicom Group Inc.'s TBWA Worldwide has been working on both sides of China's global image. On behalf of sportswear maker Adidas AG, TBWA's Beijing office has been running a campaign focused on Chinese pride, showing Chinese athletes supported by throngs of fans.
At the same time, the agency's Paris office was working on another ad campaign on behalf of Amnesty International that showed Chinese athletes being tortured by Chinese authorities. In one of the print ads, a person has been attached to a target normally used in the shooting competition at the Games. At the bottom, it says, "After the Olympic Games, the fight for human rights must go on."
Chinese bloggers, spurred by a report in state-run media of the Amnesty campaign last week, are now calling for a boycott of all TBWA ads, among other measures.
Read the rest of this Wall Street article here.
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posted by Marco Polo at
Monday, July 14, 2008
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China's Iron-Fist Advertising, Phone and Internet Policies
In the People's Republic of Capitalism, aka China, placing your ad during the Games can be an Olympic battle. Also getting new phone or Internet service during the next couple of months will be a Herculean task.
According to Advertising Age magazine (by subscription only), the Chinese authorities "are restricting access to outdoor media in the capital through the end of September for Olympic sponsors."
"Their heavy-handed actions, the most stringent and controlling ever put in place by an Olympic Games host," the article says, "apply mostly to a 20-kilometer zone around the main venues of the Olympic Games, which start Aug. 8."
What the government is trying to do is using its totalitarian powers to avoid a common practice during previous Games, the so-called ambush marketing and guerrilla tactics by non-sponsoring advertisers who try to capitalize on the attention the Olympics attract.
"Throughout 2007, Beijing's government methodically dismantled billboards and poster sites erected by unofficial media vendors, leaving only the sites that could be easily controlled," the article says.
But these heavy-handed actions are backfiring, frustrating not only unofficial advertisers but also the companies sponsoring the Games.
"In mid-May, the government invalidated existing media contracts for outdoor media such as posters, bus shelters and subway advertising in Beijing as well as at the city's international airport, forcing Olympic sponsors to renegotiate as space for those venues in bundled packages," its adds.
And we all know absolute power corrupts absolutely. According to the magazine, corruption is flourishing because of this authoritarian decision.
One media executive in Shanghai who did not want to be identified told Advertising Age that, "There seems to be a lot of underhand deals going on, some relating to money and some simply to who you know. The frustration really comes down to the fact that they don't have choice. They just have to take what they get."
But official censorship in China seems to know no limits. The magazine also reports that the distribution of Time Out, a popular guide for foreign tourists in Beijing, has been banned by the authorities for fear of potential trouble. Incidentally, Time Out, published in English, has never run into trouble with the official censors before.
Of course, the Internet is not immune to the world's most powerful censoring machine. The magazine reports that the government "has ordered China Telecom, which controls fixed-line telecom services; China Mobile, the world's largest mobile-phone service provider; and internet provider China Netcom Corp. to stop adding new customers in August."
"The official reason is that it wants service providers to focus on providing good service during the Olympics, but it's also a move to block anyone who might take advantage of the Games to protest by stopping people from adding new phone or Internet connections," the magazine informs.
China, no doubt, takes the gold in the censoring games.
Read more!
According to Advertising Age magazine (by subscription only), the Chinese authorities "are restricting access to outdoor media in the capital through the end of September for Olympic sponsors."
"Their heavy-handed actions, the most stringent and controlling ever put in place by an Olympic Games host," the article says, "apply mostly to a 20-kilometer zone around the main venues of the Olympic Games, which start Aug. 8."
What the government is trying to do is using its totalitarian powers to avoid a common practice during previous Games, the so-called ambush marketing and guerrilla tactics by non-sponsoring advertisers who try to capitalize on the attention the Olympics attract.
"Throughout 2007, Beijing's government methodically dismantled billboards and poster sites erected by unofficial media vendors, leaving only the sites that could be easily controlled," the article says.
But these heavy-handed actions are backfiring, frustrating not only unofficial advertisers but also the companies sponsoring the Games.
"In mid-May, the government invalidated existing media contracts for outdoor media such as posters, bus shelters and subway advertising in Beijing as well as at the city's international airport, forcing Olympic sponsors to renegotiate as space for those venues in bundled packages," its adds.
And we all know absolute power corrupts absolutely. According to the magazine, corruption is flourishing because of this authoritarian decision.
One media executive in Shanghai who did not want to be identified told Advertising Age that, "There seems to be a lot of underhand deals going on, some relating to money and some simply to who you know. The frustration really comes down to the fact that they don't have choice. They just have to take what they get."
But official censorship in China seems to know no limits. The magazine also reports that the distribution of Time Out, a popular guide for foreign tourists in Beijing, has been banned by the authorities for fear of potential trouble. Incidentally, Time Out, published in English, has never run into trouble with the official censors before.
Of course, the Internet is not immune to the world's most powerful censoring machine. The magazine reports that the government "has ordered China Telecom, which controls fixed-line telecom services; China Mobile, the world's largest mobile-phone service provider; and internet provider China Netcom Corp. to stop adding new customers in August."
"The official reason is that it wants service providers to focus on providing good service during the Olympics, but it's also a move to block anyone who might take advantage of the Games to protest by stopping people from adding new phone or Internet connections," the magazine informs.
China, no doubt, takes the gold in the censoring games.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Monday, July 14, 2008
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008
China Violating Olympic Media Freedom Commitments
The Chinese government continues to block and threaten foreign journalists despite repeated promises to lift media freedom restrictions ahead of the Olympic Games, a Human Rights Watch report said.
The Chinese government has prohibited local Chinese-language media from publishing unflattering news ahead of the Games, leaving foreign media as the only source of factual reporting about a wide range of crucial issues in China today. But systematic surveillance, obstruction, intimidation of sources, and pressure on local assistants are hobbling foreign correspondents' efforts to pursue investigative stories.
"Proponents and critics of the Beijing Games agreed on one thing - that fewer restrictions for international media and scrutiny of China at this time would constitute progress," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Yet the Chinese government - with the help of the International Olympic Committee - has done its best to impede progress."
The 71-page report, "China's Forbidden Zones: Shutting the Media out of Tibet and Other 'Sensitive' Stories," draws on more than 60 interviews with correspondents in China between December 2007 and June 2008. It documents how foreign correspondents and their sources continue to face intimidation and obstruction by government officials or their proxies when they pursue stories that can embarrass the authorities, expose official wrongdoing, or document social unrest.
Some journalists have suffered serious threats to their lives or safety. Most recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has declined to investigate death threats made against more than 10 correspondents and their family members in March and April 2008. In September 2007, senior Reuters correspondent Chris Buckley was beaten and detained by plainclothes thugs after interviewing rural citizens who had come to Beijing seeking redress for abuses committed by local authorities who were held at an illegal detention facility in Beijing. The following month, a European television news journalist suffered similar treatment while trying to report on unrest in Hebei province.
China is also threatening to restrict entry to news organizations that do not toe the line. In November 2007, a foreign cable news network that had publicly complained about previous harassment and detention by Anhui province officials was informed by a Chinese foreign ministry official that its accreditation to cover the Olympic Games was in jeopardy. A number of news organizations have reported difficulties obtaining visas and accreditation in advance of the Games, and several have begun to publicly voice concerns about restricted access to venues such as Tiananmen Square.
"These constraints limit what the estimated 25,000 correspondents going to China for the Olympics can cover," said Richardson. "Journalists who try to report objectively on the complex realities of modern China are facing real risks, despite the government's commitments to give them greater freedom."
In 2001, the Chinese government promised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that it would respect free expression in the run-up to the Beijing Games. In May 2007, the government announced new freedoms for accredited foreign journalists in the "Service Guide for Foreign Media" ( http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/31/china16029.htm ). The temporary regulations, in effect from January 1, 2007 until October 17, 2008, allow foreign journalists to freely conduct interviews with any consenting Chinese organization or citizen. The regulations do not allow similar freedoms for Chinese journalists.
While some correspondents have noted improvements brought about by the new regulations, the majority say the regulations have done little to enable them to report on issues that government officials are determined to conceal. Those include high-level corruption, ethnic conflicts, social unrest, public health crises, and the workings of China's large detention system, including prisons, labor camps, mental hospitals, and police stations.
For example, national and local authorities were unusually open to media coverage of their rapid responses following the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan. Yet as soon as the news turned to those authorities' possible culpability for not doing more in advance to minimize damage, they reverted to more obstructionist tactics. On June 3, police forcibly dragged an Associated Press reporter and two photographers away from the scene of a protest by the parents of student victims. It remains unclear whether foreign correspondents will be able to report growing public demands for accountability.
In Tibetan areas, the site of the biggest government crackdown since the June 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, news remains difficult to report. Although the government announced on June 26 that it would reopen Tibet to foreign journalists, it has specified that "previous procedures" will apply. Those "previous procedures" were an onerous application process that, according to one veteran foreign correspondent, made going to Tibet "virtually impossible." In addition, the fear of retribution for talking to foreign journalists remains so high that Tibetans are unlikely to be willing to approach them with important information. That means correspondents are unlikely to be able to verify the origins of the protests or determine how many were ultimately killed, injured, or arrested.
Officials have also sought to undermine foreign journalists by intimidating their more vulnerable Chinese sources. In several cases, correspondents told Human Rights Watch that officials interrogating them focused on obtaining the names, mobile phone numbers and locations of their local sources. One source for a foreign television journalist was beaten so badly that he required hospitalization; after his release, he was placed under house arrest. Other foreign correspondents spoke of sources' subsequently being fired from their jobs or being threatened - sometimes with criminal charges - by local authorities.
"In recent months foreign journalists have continued to provide important coverage of serious issues in China," said Richardson. "But neither they nor their sources should have to endure abuses ranging from harassment to death threats in order to do so, especially in light of the rights ostensibly granted by the temporary regulations."
Article 51 of the Olympic Charter obliges the IOC to take "all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games."
Despite Beijing's documented record of ignored pledges and denial of access, the International Olympic Committee has not publicly criticized the Chinese government's violations of media freedom pledges. Indeed, some IOC representatives have publicly praised China's media freedom. In April 2008, while foreign journalists were barred from Tibet and some were receiving death threats amidst a state media-driven vilification of "western media bias," the head of the IOC press commission, Kevan Gosper, praised the "open-mindedness" of the Chinese government in "supporting the interests of . . . international journalists."
"The corrosive effects of the violations of Olympics-related media freedom pledges will linger long after the last athletes have left Beijing," Richardson said. "It's in the interest of the IOC and the foreign heads of state who will attend the Beijing Olympics to try to ensure that media freedom is a lasting legacy of the Games rather than a broken promise."
The report is available at: http://hrw.org/reports/2008/china0708
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on the Beijing Olympics, please visit:
http://china.hrw.org/
Read more!
The Chinese government has prohibited local Chinese-language media from publishing unflattering news ahead of the Games, leaving foreign media as the only source of factual reporting about a wide range of crucial issues in China today. But systematic surveillance, obstruction, intimidation of sources, and pressure on local assistants are hobbling foreign correspondents' efforts to pursue investigative stories.
"Proponents and critics of the Beijing Games agreed on one thing - that fewer restrictions for international media and scrutiny of China at this time would constitute progress," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Yet the Chinese government - with the help of the International Olympic Committee - has done its best to impede progress."
The 71-page report, "China's Forbidden Zones: Shutting the Media out of Tibet and Other 'Sensitive' Stories," draws on more than 60 interviews with correspondents in China between December 2007 and June 2008. It documents how foreign correspondents and their sources continue to face intimidation and obstruction by government officials or their proxies when they pursue stories that can embarrass the authorities, expose official wrongdoing, or document social unrest.
Some journalists have suffered serious threats to their lives or safety. Most recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has declined to investigate death threats made against more than 10 correspondents and their family members in March and April 2008. In September 2007, senior Reuters correspondent Chris Buckley was beaten and detained by plainclothes thugs after interviewing rural citizens who had come to Beijing seeking redress for abuses committed by local authorities who were held at an illegal detention facility in Beijing. The following month, a European television news journalist suffered similar treatment while trying to report on unrest in Hebei province.
China is also threatening to restrict entry to news organizations that do not toe the line. In November 2007, a foreign cable news network that had publicly complained about previous harassment and detention by Anhui province officials was informed by a Chinese foreign ministry official that its accreditation to cover the Olympic Games was in jeopardy. A number of news organizations have reported difficulties obtaining visas and accreditation in advance of the Games, and several have begun to publicly voice concerns about restricted access to venues such as Tiananmen Square.
"These constraints limit what the estimated 25,000 correspondents going to China for the Olympics can cover," said Richardson. "Journalists who try to report objectively on the complex realities of modern China are facing real risks, despite the government's commitments to give them greater freedom."
In 2001, the Chinese government promised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that it would respect free expression in the run-up to the Beijing Games. In May 2007, the government announced new freedoms for accredited foreign journalists in the "Service Guide for Foreign Media" ( http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/31/china16029.htm ). The temporary regulations, in effect from January 1, 2007 until October 17, 2008, allow foreign journalists to freely conduct interviews with any consenting Chinese organization or citizen. The regulations do not allow similar freedoms for Chinese journalists.
While some correspondents have noted improvements brought about by the new regulations, the majority say the regulations have done little to enable them to report on issues that government officials are determined to conceal. Those include high-level corruption, ethnic conflicts, social unrest, public health crises, and the workings of China's large detention system, including prisons, labor camps, mental hospitals, and police stations.
For example, national and local authorities were unusually open to media coverage of their rapid responses following the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan. Yet as soon as the news turned to those authorities' possible culpability for not doing more in advance to minimize damage, they reverted to more obstructionist tactics. On June 3, police forcibly dragged an Associated Press reporter and two photographers away from the scene of a protest by the parents of student victims. It remains unclear whether foreign correspondents will be able to report growing public demands for accountability.
In Tibetan areas, the site of the biggest government crackdown since the June 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, news remains difficult to report. Although the government announced on June 26 that it would reopen Tibet to foreign journalists, it has specified that "previous procedures" will apply. Those "previous procedures" were an onerous application process that, according to one veteran foreign correspondent, made going to Tibet "virtually impossible." In addition, the fear of retribution for talking to foreign journalists remains so high that Tibetans are unlikely to be willing to approach them with important information. That means correspondents are unlikely to be able to verify the origins of the protests or determine how many were ultimately killed, injured, or arrested.
Officials have also sought to undermine foreign journalists by intimidating their more vulnerable Chinese sources. In several cases, correspondents told Human Rights Watch that officials interrogating them focused on obtaining the names, mobile phone numbers and locations of their local sources. One source for a foreign television journalist was beaten so badly that he required hospitalization; after his release, he was placed under house arrest. Other foreign correspondents spoke of sources' subsequently being fired from their jobs or being threatened - sometimes with criminal charges - by local authorities.
"In recent months foreign journalists have continued to provide important coverage of serious issues in China," said Richardson. "But neither they nor their sources should have to endure abuses ranging from harassment to death threats in order to do so, especially in light of the rights ostensibly granted by the temporary regulations."
Article 51 of the Olympic Charter obliges the IOC to take "all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games."
Despite Beijing's documented record of ignored pledges and denial of access, the International Olympic Committee has not publicly criticized the Chinese government's violations of media freedom pledges. Indeed, some IOC representatives have publicly praised China's media freedom. In April 2008, while foreign journalists were barred from Tibet and some were receiving death threats amidst a state media-driven vilification of "western media bias," the head of the IOC press commission, Kevan Gosper, praised the "open-mindedness" of the Chinese government in "supporting the interests of . . . international journalists."
"The corrosive effects of the violations of Olympics-related media freedom pledges will linger long after the last athletes have left Beijing," Richardson said. "It's in the interest of the IOC and the foreign heads of state who will attend the Beijing Olympics to try to ensure that media freedom is a lasting legacy of the Games rather than a broken promise."
The report is available at: http://hrw.org/reports/2008/china0708
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on the Beijing Olympics, please visit:
http://china.hrw.org/
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
0 Comments
China Fails to Qualify As Worthy of the Olympic Games, Report
According to a distressing report released by three International PEN centers, China has failed its free expression grade one month before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games on Aug. 8.
The report, "Failing to Deliver: An Olympic-Year Report Card on Free Expression in China," finds that the climate for freedom of expression in China has measurably deteriorated over the past year, in full view of the international community.
In December 2007, PEN American Center, PEN Canada, and the Independent Chinese PEN Center were following the cases of 40 writers and journalists imprisoned in China. Today, after numerous additional detentions and a few releases, PEN is following the cases of 51 writers, 44 of whom are still in prison.
"If China had fulfilled its pledges to protect and expand human rights in the run-up to the Olympics, it could now be poised to take a major step forward on the international stage," said Larry Siems, Director of the Freedom to Write and International Programs of PEN American Center. "Instead, as this report makes clear, the world has witnessed a grinding, relentless campaign to jail or silence prominent dissident voices and new and brazen efforts to control domestic and international press."
"It is not too late," said Marian Botsford Fraser of PEN Canada. "There's still time for China to make good on the commitments it offered its own citizens and the international community when it bid to host the Olympics. With one month before the Opening Ceremonies, we are asking the world to join us in holding the Chinese government to its pledges."
According to the report:
- There are more writers and journalists in Chinese prisons than there were seven months ago;
- Dissident writers and journalists not in prison face serious restrictions on their movements and on their ability to speak and publish freely;
- Internet censorship and other laws such as subversion and inciting separatism or splittism are regularly used to deny the universally-guaranteed right to freedom of expression;
- China's promises to allow media to report freely throughout China have been undermined by its attempts to manage international coverage from Tibet and earthquake-affected areas and by its refusal to extend any new protections whatsoever to Chinese journalists.
The report recommends that the Chinese government:
- Release all writers and journalists currently imprisoned and stop detaining, harassing, and censoring writers and journalists in China;
- End Internet censorship, and reform laws used to imprison writers and journalists and suppress freedom of expression; and
- Abide by its pledge that "there will be no restrictions on media reporting and movement of journalists up to and including the Olympic Games."
In addition, the report urges that all nations participating in the Olympic Games press the Chinese government to act on these recommendations and secure clear assurances that no Chinese citizens, Chinese or foreign journalists, athletes or spectators will be detained or otherwise prevented from expressing their views peacefully during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
Yu Zhang of the Independent Chinese PEN Center stressed that fostering respect for basic rights is essential for China's future. "In the end, it is not by staging a successful Olympic Games, but by honoring these commitments that China's slogan 'One World, One Dream' will become true," Zhang said.
PEN American Center, PEN Canada, and the Independent Chinese PEN Center are among the 145 worldwide centers of International PEN, an organization that works to promote friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers everywhere, to fight for freedom of expression, and represent the conscience of world literature.
For the "Failing to Deliver" report and the complete list of writers, please visit http://www.pen.org/china2008 , http://www.pencanada.ca.
Read more!
The report, "Failing to Deliver: An Olympic-Year Report Card on Free Expression in China," finds that the climate for freedom of expression in China has measurably deteriorated over the past year, in full view of the international community.
In December 2007, PEN American Center, PEN Canada, and the Independent Chinese PEN Center were following the cases of 40 writers and journalists imprisoned in China. Today, after numerous additional detentions and a few releases, PEN is following the cases of 51 writers, 44 of whom are still in prison.
"If China had fulfilled its pledges to protect and expand human rights in the run-up to the Olympics, it could now be poised to take a major step forward on the international stage," said Larry Siems, Director of the Freedom to Write and International Programs of PEN American Center. "Instead, as this report makes clear, the world has witnessed a grinding, relentless campaign to jail or silence prominent dissident voices and new and brazen efforts to control domestic and international press."
"It is not too late," said Marian Botsford Fraser of PEN Canada. "There's still time for China to make good on the commitments it offered its own citizens and the international community when it bid to host the Olympics. With one month before the Opening Ceremonies, we are asking the world to join us in holding the Chinese government to its pledges."
According to the report:
- There are more writers and journalists in Chinese prisons than there were seven months ago;
- Dissident writers and journalists not in prison face serious restrictions on their movements and on their ability to speak and publish freely;
- Internet censorship and other laws such as subversion and inciting separatism or splittism are regularly used to deny the universally-guaranteed right to freedom of expression;
- China's promises to allow media to report freely throughout China have been undermined by its attempts to manage international coverage from Tibet and earthquake-affected areas and by its refusal to extend any new protections whatsoever to Chinese journalists.
The report recommends that the Chinese government:
- Release all writers and journalists currently imprisoned and stop detaining, harassing, and censoring writers and journalists in China;
- End Internet censorship, and reform laws used to imprison writers and journalists and suppress freedom of expression; and
- Abide by its pledge that "there will be no restrictions on media reporting and movement of journalists up to and including the Olympic Games."
In addition, the report urges that all nations participating in the Olympic Games press the Chinese government to act on these recommendations and secure clear assurances that no Chinese citizens, Chinese or foreign journalists, athletes or spectators will be detained or otherwise prevented from expressing their views peacefully during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
Yu Zhang of the Independent Chinese PEN Center stressed that fostering respect for basic rights is essential for China's future. "In the end, it is not by staging a successful Olympic Games, but by honoring these commitments that China's slogan 'One World, One Dream' will become true," Zhang said.
PEN American Center, PEN Canada, and the Independent Chinese PEN Center are among the 145 worldwide centers of International PEN, an organization that works to promote friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers everywhere, to fight for freedom of expression, and represent the conscience of world literature.
For the "Failing to Deliver" report and the complete list of writers, please visit http://www.pen.org/china2008 , http://www.pencanada.ca.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
0 Comments
One Month Before the Olympics, Media Face Huge Hurdles
One month before the start of the Beijing Olympics, China needs to make enormous progress to ensure the free access it promised journalists when the Games were awarded, the Committee to Protect Journalists informed.
Twenty-six Chinese journalists remain in prison and heavy government censorship remains in place despite Beijing's broad assurances — made in its 2001 bid to host the event — that journalists would be given "complete freedom" during the Olympics.
Even licensed international broadcasters have doubts about whether they will be able to report freely next month. Hein Verbruggen, a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) official, acknowledged these anxieties in Beijing today at the opening of the Olympic press and broadcast centers.
"Now it is operation time . . . We will have to deliver to all stakeholders — including the media, obviously — what was pledged," he said, according to The Associated Press. But he downplayed concerns in an official press release, saying that "a very small number of open issues remain — such as some matters with broadcasters."
Outstanding media issues will be discussed at an IOC meeting with Beijing organizers tomorrow, AP reported.
At a press conference marking the opening of the media centers, the local Olympic organizing committee's media head, Sun Weijia, told journalists that live broadcasts would be allowed from the streets of Beijing, including Tiananmen Square, during the Games. Sun's comments appeared intended to allay concerns that live transmissions could be obstructed. During a question period, Sun denied knowledge of an incident last week in which Chinese police interrupted a live interview by a German broadcaster, according to an official transcript of the press conference. The transcript does not detail the incident, although AP said police had blocked a ZDF interview at the Great Wall.
Sun did not address reports of bureaucratic delays that broadcasters say are hampering their ability to work. Complaints range from access to locales such as Tiananmen Square, to the free movement of satellite trucks throughout the city, AP reported.
Sun said that "journalists from home and abroad" would have unfettered Internet access in "all the major (Olympic) sites" to enhance coverage of the Games. He did not say when the access would expire, or address concerns that routinely censored Web sites — such as those that China considers anti-government — would be inaccessible outside the venues.
"These are routine issues that should have been dealt with long ago. It's imperative that they be resolved immediately and in keeping with China's promises of free and open media for the Games," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. "That said, we remain dismayed by the repressive conditions under which our Chinese colleagues continue to work. The censorship, imprisonment, and harassment of domestic journalists are the fundamental issues that should be resolved."
In filing its official bid to host the Games in January 2001, Beijing organizers told the IOC that "there will be no restrictions on journalists" reporting the Olympics. No distinction was made between local and international journalists in this or other public assurances.
The government eased some restrictions on foreign journalists in January 2007, in regulations that will expire in October this year. But the rules, which apply throughout China, were ignored by government officials when journalists tried to cover unrest in Tibetan areas of western China in March 2008, CPJ research shows.
No liberalization has been extended to Chinese reporters, who are routinely punished for reporting sensitive information on overseas Web sites. Journalist Sun Lin was sentenced to four years in prison on June 26.
CPJ has documented China's failure to meet its media pledges in the newly updated special report, Falling Short, http://cpj.org/Briefings/2007/Falling_Short/China/index_new.html
CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.cpj.org
For further information on violations of Olympics-related media freedom, see: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/95134 and other alerts.
Read more!
Twenty-six Chinese journalists remain in prison and heavy government censorship remains in place despite Beijing's broad assurances — made in its 2001 bid to host the event — that journalists would be given "complete freedom" during the Olympics.
Even licensed international broadcasters have doubts about whether they will be able to report freely next month. Hein Verbruggen, a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) official, acknowledged these anxieties in Beijing today at the opening of the Olympic press and broadcast centers.
"Now it is operation time . . . We will have to deliver to all stakeholders — including the media, obviously — what was pledged," he said, according to The Associated Press. But he downplayed concerns in an official press release, saying that "a very small number of open issues remain — such as some matters with broadcasters."
Outstanding media issues will be discussed at an IOC meeting with Beijing organizers tomorrow, AP reported.
At a press conference marking the opening of the media centers, the local Olympic organizing committee's media head, Sun Weijia, told journalists that live broadcasts would be allowed from the streets of Beijing, including Tiananmen Square, during the Games. Sun's comments appeared intended to allay concerns that live transmissions could be obstructed. During a question period, Sun denied knowledge of an incident last week in which Chinese police interrupted a live interview by a German broadcaster, according to an official transcript of the press conference. The transcript does not detail the incident, although AP said police had blocked a ZDF interview at the Great Wall.
Sun did not address reports of bureaucratic delays that broadcasters say are hampering their ability to work. Complaints range from access to locales such as Tiananmen Square, to the free movement of satellite trucks throughout the city, AP reported.
Sun said that "journalists from home and abroad" would have unfettered Internet access in "all the major (Olympic) sites" to enhance coverage of the Games. He did not say when the access would expire, or address concerns that routinely censored Web sites — such as those that China considers anti-government — would be inaccessible outside the venues.
"These are routine issues that should have been dealt with long ago. It's imperative that they be resolved immediately and in keeping with China's promises of free and open media for the Games," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. "That said, we remain dismayed by the repressive conditions under which our Chinese colleagues continue to work. The censorship, imprisonment, and harassment of domestic journalists are the fundamental issues that should be resolved."
In filing its official bid to host the Games in January 2001, Beijing organizers told the IOC that "there will be no restrictions on journalists" reporting the Olympics. No distinction was made between local and international journalists in this or other public assurances.
The government eased some restrictions on foreign journalists in January 2007, in regulations that will expire in October this year. But the rules, which apply throughout China, were ignored by government officials when journalists tried to cover unrest in Tibetan areas of western China in March 2008, CPJ research shows.
No liberalization has been extended to Chinese reporters, who are routinely punished for reporting sensitive information on overseas Web sites. Journalist Sun Lin was sentenced to four years in prison on June 26.
CPJ has documented China's failure to meet its media pledges in the newly updated special report, Falling Short, http://cpj.org/Briefings/2007/Falling_Short/China/index_new.html
CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.cpj.org
For further information on violations of Olympics-related media freedom, see: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/95134 and other alerts.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
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French President's Olympic Flip-Flop
French President Nicolas Sarkozy finally decided to attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, thus braking promises that he would not.
Sarkozy announced that he will be at Beijing's Olympic Stadium on Aug. 8 both as head of the French government and current holder of the European Union's rotating presidency.
Reporters without Borders holds no punches in the following rejection of Sarkozy's Olympic flip-flop:
"Reporters Without Borders deplores French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision, which he confirmed early today to his Chinese counterpart, to attend the Olympic Games opening ceremony on 8 August. He said he would be in Beijing’s Olympic Stadium both as president of France and as current holder of the European Union’s rotating presidency.
“'By taking this decision, President Sarkozy is breaking promises he gave,' the press freedom organisation said. 'He clearly conditioned his attendance on the resumption of a real dialogue between the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama. The meetings recently held in Beijing went nowhere, and Chinese officials continue to denounce the Dalai Lama’s clique. Sarkozy is also defying opposition within the EU and the European Parliament to his attendance at the opening ceremony'.
"One of the Tibetan negotiators said on his return from Beijing last weekend that holding talks with the Chinese authorities before the games was 'not feasible' because 'they are obsessed with the Olympics'. The Tibetan government in exile suspects that the Chinese resumed negotiations solely for the sake of the Olympics.
“'President Sarkozy’s decision is also a stab in the back for China’s dissidents', Reporters Without Borders continued. 'Those who are in prison will not be able to count on France to help get them released early. Those who are subject to steadily increasing surveillance and harassment will have to do without the support of Sarkozy, although he took such a clear stand in their favour just two years ago'.
"Sarkozy wrote in his book Témoignage, published in July 2006 when he was a presidential candidate: 'I am not a follower of a realpolitik in which, for the sake of higher economic interests, one must forget principles including, and above all, respect for human rights. It is not a sign of disrespect for this empire that is China to ask the Chinese about political prisoners. Saying nothing makes you an accomplice'. Where are Sarkozy’s convictions now?
"What place do the recently detained dissidents Hu Jia and Huang Qi have in President Sarkozy’s concerns now? Chinese human rights lawyers may often be invited to France, but no one dares to speak firmly to the Chinese government when they are arrested.
"No fewer than 25 Chinese journalists, bloggers and cyber-dissidents have been arrested or sentenced to imprisonment since the start of this year.
“'We still have a month to go before the start of the 2008 Olympic Games', Reporters Without Borders added. 'Now is the time for a massive campaign for more freedom of expression in China. We call for street demonstrations to be held outside Chinese embassies around the world while the Olympic Games opening ceremony is taking place on 8 August'.
Read more!
Sarkozy announced that he will be at Beijing's Olympic Stadium on Aug. 8 both as head of the French government and current holder of the European Union's rotating presidency.
Reporters without Borders holds no punches in the following rejection of Sarkozy's Olympic flip-flop:
"Reporters Without Borders deplores French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision, which he confirmed early today to his Chinese counterpart, to attend the Olympic Games opening ceremony on 8 August. He said he would be in Beijing’s Olympic Stadium both as president of France and as current holder of the European Union’s rotating presidency.
“'By taking this decision, President Sarkozy is breaking promises he gave,' the press freedom organisation said. 'He clearly conditioned his attendance on the resumption of a real dialogue between the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama. The meetings recently held in Beijing went nowhere, and Chinese officials continue to denounce the Dalai Lama’s clique. Sarkozy is also defying opposition within the EU and the European Parliament to his attendance at the opening ceremony'.
"One of the Tibetan negotiators said on his return from Beijing last weekend that holding talks with the Chinese authorities before the games was 'not feasible' because 'they are obsessed with the Olympics'. The Tibetan government in exile suspects that the Chinese resumed negotiations solely for the sake of the Olympics.
“'President Sarkozy’s decision is also a stab in the back for China’s dissidents', Reporters Without Borders continued. 'Those who are in prison will not be able to count on France to help get them released early. Those who are subject to steadily increasing surveillance and harassment will have to do without the support of Sarkozy, although he took such a clear stand in their favour just two years ago'.
"Sarkozy wrote in his book Témoignage, published in July 2006 when he was a presidential candidate: 'I am not a follower of a realpolitik in which, for the sake of higher economic interests, one must forget principles including, and above all, respect for human rights. It is not a sign of disrespect for this empire that is China to ask the Chinese about political prisoners. Saying nothing makes you an accomplice'. Where are Sarkozy’s convictions now?
"What place do the recently detained dissidents Hu Jia and Huang Qi have in President Sarkozy’s concerns now? Chinese human rights lawyers may often be invited to France, but no one dares to speak firmly to the Chinese government when they are arrested.
"No fewer than 25 Chinese journalists, bloggers and cyber-dissidents have been arrested or sentenced to imprisonment since the start of this year.
“'We still have a month to go before the start of the 2008 Olympic Games', Reporters Without Borders added. 'Now is the time for a massive campaign for more freedom of expression in China. We call for street demonstrations to be held outside Chinese embassies around the world while the Olympic Games opening ceremony is taking place on 8 August'.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
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Join the US Campaign for Burma's Call to Pressure the Chinese Government
The US Campaign for Burma (USCB) has launched a worldwide effort to pressure the Chinese government into stopping its support of the military dictatorship in Burma.
USCB is asking people to boycott the Olympics by not watching any of the Games events on TV unless the Chinese government fulfills the following conditions:
1. Stop blocking the UN arms embargo on Burma and stop selling weapons to the Burmese regime.
2. End its support for the Burmese regime.
Aug. 8, the first day of the Olympics, also marks the 20th anniversary of the popular uprising against the Burmese Junta, which was brutally repressed by the military dictators.
If China does not change its Burma policy, USCB urges you to do the the following:
1. Not watch the Olympics, especially the opening ad closing ceremonies.
2. Not purchasing Olympics souvenirs or merchandise.
3. Not purchasing merchandise from Olympic sponsors, a list of which can be found here.
USCB also offers you the opportunity to write to Olympic sponsors to urge them to use their influence over the Chinese government to change its Burma policy.
You can ask your friends and family to join the protest here.
Read more!
USCB is asking people to boycott the Olympics by not watching any of the Games events on TV unless the Chinese government fulfills the following conditions:
1. Stop blocking the UN arms embargo on Burma and stop selling weapons to the Burmese regime.
2. End its support for the Burmese regime.
Aug. 8, the first day of the Olympics, also marks the 20th anniversary of the popular uprising against the Burmese Junta, which was brutally repressed by the military dictators.
If China does not change its Burma policy, USCB urges you to do the the following:
1. Not watch the Olympics, especially the opening ad closing ceremonies.
2. Not purchasing Olympics souvenirs or merchandise.
3. Not purchasing merchandise from Olympic sponsors, a list of which can be found here.
USCB also offers you the opportunity to write to Olympic sponsors to urge them to use their influence over the Chinese government to change its Burma policy.
You can ask your friends and family to join the protest here.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
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Saturday, July 5, 2008
Dalai Lama's Envoys Disappointed by Talks in China
BEIJING, July 5 -- Envoys for the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, said Saturday that their meetings with Chinese officials last week were so disappointing that they could not even get the Chinese to agree to issue a joint statement committing both sides to further talks.
Tibet advocates are now urging leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations to raise concerns about the fate of Tibetans who participated in widespread protests this spring against Chinese rule with Chinese President Hu Jintao at an outreach meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, this week.
"We had hoped that the Chinese leadership would reciprocate our efforts by taking tangible steps during this round. On the contrary, due to their excessive concern about legitimacy, the Chinese side even failed to agree to our proposal of issuing a joint statement with the aim of committing both parties to the dialogue process," the envoys, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, said in a statement issued in Dharmsala, India, where the Dalai Lama's administration-in-exile is based.
Read the rest of this Washington Post article here.
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Tibet advocates are now urging leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations to raise concerns about the fate of Tibetans who participated in widespread protests this spring against Chinese rule with Chinese President Hu Jintao at an outreach meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, this week.
"We had hoped that the Chinese leadership would reciprocate our efforts by taking tangible steps during this round. On the contrary, due to their excessive concern about legitimacy, the Chinese side even failed to agree to our proposal of issuing a joint statement with the aim of committing both parties to the dialogue process," the envoys, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, said in a statement issued in Dharmsala, India, where the Dalai Lama's administration-in-exile is based.
Read the rest of this Washington Post article here.
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posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, July 05, 2008
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Thursday, July 3, 2008
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.
Read more!
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.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Thursday, July 03, 2008
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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.
Read more!
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.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Thursday, July 03, 2008
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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
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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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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posted by Marco Polo at
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
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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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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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posted by Marco Polo at
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
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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.
Read more!
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.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
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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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Boxun News has a detailed report in Chinese here.
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posted by Marco Polo at
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
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Saturday, June 28, 2008
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.”
Read more!
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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posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, June 28, 2008
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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.
Read more!
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.
Read more!
posted by Marco Polo at
Saturday, June 28, 2008
0 Comments
Links
- World Press Freedom Committee
- Amnesty International China page
- Blogging for China
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- China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group
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- greatfirewallofchina.org
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- Human Rights in China
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- The Knight Foundation
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- Reporters without Borders
- Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center
- Status of Chinese People
- Sydney PEN Center
- World Association of Newspapers
- We Are Ready for Freedom of Expression
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