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Hindsight
Joined: 02 Feb 2009
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 Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 2:58 pm Post subject: How a totalitarian state (CHINA) kills free speech |
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China's censors instructions on reporting on Google:
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All chief editors and managers:
Google has officially announced its withdrawal from the China market. This is a high-impact incident. It has triggered netizens' discussions which are not limited to a commercial level. Therefore please pay strict attention to the following content requirements during this period:
A. News section:
1. Only use Central Government main media (website) content; do not use content from other sources.
2. Reposting must not change title.
3. News recommendations should refer to Central government main media websites.
4. Do not produce relevant topic pages; do not set discussion sessions; do not conduct related investigative reporting.
5. Online programs with experts and scholars on this matter must apply for permission ahead of time. This type of self-initiated program production is strictly forbidden.
6. Carefully manage the commentary posts under news items.
B. Forums, blogs and other interactive media sections:
1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic.
2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top.
3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, Internet policies with the excuse of this event.
4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy.
5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions.
6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner.
We ask the Monitoring and Control Group to immediately follow up monitoring and control actions along the above directions; once any problems are discovered, please communicate with respected sessions in a timely manner.
Addition[al] guidelines:
-- Do not participate in and report Google's information/press releases.
-- Do not report about Google exerting pressure on our country via people or events.
-- Related reports need to put [our story/perspective/information] in the center, do not provide materials for Google to attack relevant policies of our country.
-- Use talking points about Google withdrawing from China published by relevant departments. |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/24/AR2010032402511.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2010/03/the-latest-directives-from-the-ministry-of-truth-032310/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/03/google_does_the_right_thing_in.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 |
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Hindsight
Joined: 02 Feb 2009
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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This is how the "news media" works in a totalitarian country.
Subtle, isn't it?
Can you guess what would happen to a "journalist" who violates these rules?
The "Monitoring and Control Group," whatever that is, would report you to the central government. I would assume that if they viewed the violations as deliberate, you would lose your job and possibly be put in jail.
Note that "chief managers," presumably what in the West might be called "editors," are required to assign staff to monitor information for violations by journalists, and to report any "mass incidents," i.e., protests, to the central government. In other words, the "press" is part of the Chinese central government intelligence apparatus, used to report mass protests and violations by other journalists.
Can you imagine what would happen if the Canadian government sent out such a directive to Canadian newspapers, or for that matter, any modern democracy?
(Some editors would probably die laughing.)
Lying to its people? Yes, that's a good description of China. The Chinese media is indeed used as an extension of the Chinese Communist Party's dissemination of lies to the Chinese people. What else would you expect from a totalitarian nation?
But don't assume that every other country in the world is a mirror image of China.
Not yet, at least. |
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Hindsight
Joined: 02 Feb 2009
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:03 am Post subject: |
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Picture of a totalitarian country that thinks it is still in the 20th century...
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China Bars Rights Lawyers From Leaving Country
By ANDREW JACOBS
BEIJING � Two prominent rights lawyers bound for an international legal conference in London said they were blocked from leaving China on Tuesday because the government feared they might attend the ceremony in Oslo next month that will award the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Although the lawyers, Mo Shaoping and He Weifang, said Norway was not on their itinerary, the police officials who detained them at Beijing�s airport 90 minutes before the flight claimed their trip posed a threat to national security. �That�s the most imbecilic thing I�ve heard,� said Mr. Mo afterward, adding that he lacks a visa for Norway and holds a return ticket for Nov. 15.
In barring the two men from leaving the country, the government demonstrated its resolve to prevent Chinese citizens from showing up in Oslo for the ceremony on Dec. 10. To that end, it has kept Mr. Liu�s wife incommunicado in her Beijing apartment and subjected scores of other writers, academics and lawyers to varying degrees of detention or surveillance.
At the same time, it has ramped up pressure on foreign governments, warning them to stay away from the event next month or �bear the consequences,� as Cui Tiankai, China�s vice foreign minister, put it last week.
Mr. Liu, an essayist who is among China�s best known advocates for political reform, is serving an 11-year sentence for his writings, including a manifesto published on the Internet that called for human rights, the rule of law and multi-party elections. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/world/asia/10china.html?hp
specifically, Nineteen Eighty-Four. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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Chinese father punished for food safety activism
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A father who organized a support group for other parents whose children were sickened in one of China's worst food safety scandals was convicted and sentenced Wednesday to 2 1/2 years in prison for inciting social disorder, his lawyer said.
Zhao Lianhai had pushed for greater official accountability and compensation for victims and their families after the 2008 scandal that shocked China. His sentence appeared particularly severe because the case related to a public safety incident that the embarrassed leadership had pledged to tackle in a bid to restore consumer confidence. |
Repulsive. |
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Hindsight
Joined: 02 Feb 2009
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| Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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. . .My father is Li Gang!
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November 17, 2010
China�s Censors Misfire in Abuse-of-Power Case
By MICHAEL WINES
BAODING, China � One night in late October, a college student named Chen Xiaofeng was in-line skating with a friend on the grounds of Hebei University in central China. They were gliding past the campus grocery when a Volkswagen sedan raced down a narrow lane and struck them head-on.
The impact sent Ms. Chen flying and broke the other woman�s leg. The 22-year-old driver, who was intoxicated, tried to speed away. Security guards intercepted him, but he was undeterred. He warned them, �My father is Li Gang!�
�The two girls were motionless,� one passer-by that night, a student who identified himself only by his surname, Duan, said this week. �There was a small pool of blood.� The next day, Ms. Chen was dead.
Chen Xiaofeng was a poor farm girl. The man accused of killing her, Li Qiming, is the son of Li Gang, the deputy police chief in the Beishi district of Baoding. The tale of her death is precisely the sort of gripping socio-drama � a commoner grievously wronged; a privileged transgressor pulling strings to escape punishment � that sets off alarm bells in the offices of Communist Party censors. And in fact, party propaganda officials moved swiftly after the accident to ensure that the story never gained traction.
Curiously, however, the opposite has happened. A month after the accident, much of China knows the story, and �My father is Li Gang� has become a bitter inside joke, a catchphrase for shirking any responsibility � washing the dishes, being faithful to a girlfriend � with impunity. Even the government�s heavy-handed effort to control the story has become the object of scorn among younger, savvier Chinese.
�There was a little on the school news channel at first,� one Hebei University student who offered only his surname, Wang, said in an interview last week. �But then it went completely quiet. We�re really disappointed in the press for stopping coverage of this major news.�
In many ways, the Li Gang case, as it is known, exemplifies how China�s propaganda machine � able to slant or kill any news in the age of printing presses and television � is sometimes hamstrung in the age of the Internet, especially when it tries to manipulate a pithy narrative about the abuse of power.
�Frequently we�ll see directives on coverage, but those directives don�t necessarily mean there is no coverage,� said David Bandurski, an analyst at the University of Hong Kong�s China Media Project. �They�re not all that effective.�
�Censorship is increasingly unpopular in China,� he added. �We know how unpopular it is, because they have to keep the guidelines themselves under wraps.�
A gadfly blog, sarcastically titled Ministry of Truth, has begun to puncture the veil surrounding censorship, anonymously posting secret government directives leaked by free-speech sympathizers. According to the blog�s sources, the Central Propaganda Department issued a directive on Oct. 28, 10 days after the accident, �ensuring there is no more hype regarding the disturbance over traffic at Hebei University.�
On that same day, censors prohibited reporting on six other incidents. One involved another girl�s death in police custody. Others included an investigation of a Hunan Province security official, the sexual dalliance of a Maoming vice mayor, the abandonment of closed pavilions at Shanghai�s World Expo and the increasing censorship of Internet chat rooms. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/world/asia/18li.html
There are some Chinese with cojones.
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2010/11/latest-directives-from-the-ministry-of-truth-october-22-november-7-2010/ |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2010 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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Chinese woman sentences to hard labor over Twitter message.
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BEIJING � A Chinese woman was sentenced to one year in a labor camp Wednesday after she forwarded a satirical microblog message that urged recipients to attack the Japanese pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, human rights groups said Thursday.
The woman, Cheng Jianping, 46, was accused of �disturbing social order� for resending a Twitter message from her fianc� that mocked young nationalists who held anti-Japanese rallies in several cities last month. The original message sarcastically goaded protesters to go beyond the smashing of Japanese products and express their fury at the heavily policed expo site.
Ms. Cheng added the words �Charge, angry youth.�
Ms. Cheng was seized last month in the southeastern city of Wuxi on the same day as her fianc�, Hua Chunhui. Mr. Hua, who was released five days later, told reporters the two had planned to marry on the day of their detention.
Under China�s legal system, the police can dispatch people to so-called re-education through labor for up to four years without trial. The system, thought to accommodate as many as 300,000 detainees, has been criticized by legal reformers who say it is easily abused. Such labor centers are largely populated by pickpockets, drug users and prostitutes, but they are also used as an expedient punishment for those guilty of political offenses. Once sentenced, there is little chance of appeal.
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Is this really true? Up to four years of labor at a "re-education camp" with no trial and no possibility for appeal? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2010 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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More information about these camps from Wikipedia for anyone interested. It confirms what was in the article (except perhaps the part about little chance to appeal; administrative review is available as a form of appeal), and adds some other interesting (sourced) points:
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| In periods leading up to visits from foreign dignitaries or politically sensitive anniversaries (such as the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989), local authorities have supposedly detained "undesirables" such as the homeless, mentally or physically disabled individuals, and migrant workers. |
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| In some instances, individuals were sent to re-education through labor even after being found not guilty in a court of law. |
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| Much of the labor done by re-education through labor detainees is geared towards agriculture[36] or producing goods, many of which are sold internationally, since re-education through labor detainees are not counted as official "prisoners" and therefore not subject to international treaties. |
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| Detainees who are released from re-education through labor camps may still be unable to travel or see other people freely. Individuals who remain in re-education through labor for 5 or more years may not be allowed to return to their homes, and those who do may be closely monitored and not permitted to leave certain areas.[41] For example, in July 2003 a priest who had been released from detention was kept under house arrest, and five men who attempted to visit him were themselves detained. |
A bit of positive (or at least less damning commentary) mixed in with the negative:
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| Though most reports describe the conditions of re-education camps as "brutal,"[36] there are some claims of prisoners being well-treated. For example, when he was released from a three-year re-education sentence in 1999,[46] dissident Liu Xiaobo said that he had been treated very mildly, that he had been allowed to spend time reading, and that the conditions had been "pretty good." |
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| According to Xinhua, the official news agency of the Communist Party of China, slightly over 50% of detainees released from prison and re-education through labor in 2006 received government aid in the form of funds or assistance in finding jobs. |
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