04 Jun 10 | Uncategorized
Today’s 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre has not passed without controversy.
This cartoon, published on Tuesday in the Southern Metropolis Daily was pulled from the newspaper’s website after it started attracting online interest. The image was part of a series commemorating International Children’s Day but it clearly references Tank Man, the lone protester who stood in front of a column of tanks, now the emblematic image of the massacre.
This is a brave move for the Guangdong-based newspaper, which has reputation for being one of the most independent news outlets in mainland China. However the decision to run the print edition and pull the online one has raised questions; was the cartoons publication a mistake — perhaps an overworked editor missed the underlying symbolism — or was the paper simply forced to pull the online version due to government pressure? So far, the Southern Metropolis Daily has declined to comment on the situation.
Elsewhere the authorities have kept tight control around the physical domains of Tiananmen Square and Beijing; on the geography-based social networking website foursquare.com users have staged online vigils, “checking in” to the virtual Tiananmen Square in a show of solidarity. In response, the Chinese government today blocked access to the website from mainland China. Around the world, protests have taken place in cities such as Hong Kong and Tokyo, where one of the original student demonstrators, Wu’er Kaixi, was arrested for trespassing on the Chinese Embassy. Wu’er, an activist of Uighur descent currently lives in exile in Taiwan.
In a strange twist, it was announced today that the June 4th diaries of China’s premier at the time, Li Peng, will be published this month. Secrecy still surrounds the decision to use the military to crush the student-led protests, and the Chinese government still refuses to publish verifiable figures for the number of injured or killed civilians during the protests. Although doubts have been cast on the book’s authenticity, the diaries are rumoured to provide an insight into senior officials thinking during the crisis and background into how government decisions were reached, including the deployment of martial force in the Square. In one of the passages, Li Peng is quoted as saying he will “sacrifice” his life in order to prevent another Cultural Revolution from occurring. If the book turns out to be genuine, it could be the government’s attempt to justify its actions 21 years ago.
05 May 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
On 3 May the central propaganda department issued new media guidelines designed to downplay coverage of the Qinghai earthquake and recent school attacks in order to promote the Shanghai Expo. After four violent attacks on schoolchildren in a month, reports of the incidents began to be withdrawn. The guidelines also specify that reports on the expo use only official state-endorsed Xinhua sources. Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily has confirmed it was denied accreditation to cover the Expo, and the home of activist Feng Zhenghu was raided on 19 April, after he attempted to launch his own online expo of judicial injustice.
14 Apr 10 | Uncategorized
Two Chinese newspapers — the Chongqing Times and West China City Daily — have been forced to make public apologies after publishing exposés on a recent Chinese Writers’ Association (CWA) meeting. The papers alleged attendees at the Seventh Congress of the CWA stayed in the presidential suites of a five star hotel, ate at lavish banquets and were “whisked away from the airport in Audis”. The CWA hit back, providing a receipt from the Sofitel hotel in an attempt to prove their expenses were moderated, although the receipt was dated 2 April, despite the fact that the event ran from 30 March – 4 April.
The reporter who wrote the original story has now been sacked, and various other staff at the Chongqing Times have also been disciplined and demoted. In a front page apology published on 11 April, the Chongqing Times extolled the virtues of the CWA, promising to “vigorously promote the great efforts of the Chinese Writers’ Association and its authors, whose excellent work reflects society, eulogises our era, [and] enriches the cultural life of the masses”. At the same time, it berated its editors for not “reporting fully on the grand spectacle of this conference, publicising its fruitful accomplishments” and having
a weak political sensitivity and lack[ing] a sense of political responsibility… causing irreparable harm to the Chinese Writers’ Association and the writers attending the conference. This lesson has been profound, and we express our deep sorrow and remorse.
Meanwhile, in order to cultivate an image of a nation of growing “openness” and “transparency”, Xinhua News Agency yesterday published an in-depth interview with the deputy chief of the government’s Internet Affairs Bureau, Liu Zhengrong. The bureau Liu manages is responsible for internet censorship and conversation centred around the development of online media and technology in China. While many aspects were positive, one in particular held a disturbingly chilling tone.
In one section entitled “There is no absolute freedom on the internet”, Liu states that every nation in the world maintains control over internet content and access; he claims that the measures taken by China are no different from those of any others. Although this is true to some extent, no other country has an institutionalised national filtering system as extensive as the Great Firewall, or imprisons the same number of bloggers and netizens.
In order to protect the welfare of the public, Liu said:
We advocate the self-regulation of corporations, and that society help in the supervision and inspection of internet content, as well as the essential technological strategies needed to prevent the circulation of harmful information online. These are the same methods shared internationally by other countries across the world.
The reference to the “self-regulation of corporations” could be seen as a warning to other companies who are considering following in Google’s footsteps and trying to take on the Chinese government. The suggestion that society help in the “inspection” appears to advocate the type of astroturfing carried out by the 50 Cent Party (Wu Mao Dang).
In an attempt to re-educate Chinese netizens, Liu advises those who believe that people “can say whatever they want” in other countries that they are misinformed, the internet is never completely uncensored. According to Liu, the ministry visited and compared internet management methods in more than 30 countries across the world, and concluded that there was “no such thing as absolute freedom online.”
Liu emphasised that whilst the internet gave a platform for people to discuss and exchange ideas, those who decide to express themselves publicly carry the responsibility to ensure that their views “abide by the laws of the government”.
This account by an official government spokesperson is, of course, only available in the Chinese version of Xinhua.
12 Apr 10 | News and features
In a speech to Amnesty International’s national conference John Kampfner talks self-censorship, Nick Griffin and why free speech means fighting for the rights of people whose views you find obnoxious
(more…)
