19 May 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Anyone wishing to reproduce printed or written material in Lhasa will have to undergo real-name ID registration due to a new ruling announced on 10 May. Local police will now regularly check copy service providers to ensure that they take down the names, addresses and organisations of all their customers. The move is intended to monitor the distribution of leaflets and pamphlets by pro-Tibetan activists.
07 May 10 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
China may ban anonymous online comments. In a China Daily article yesterday, government spokesperson Wang Chen confirmed plans to implement a real-name registration system. Currently, people must register a username in order to post on all major news sites but the new measures will introduce “an identity authentication system for users of online bulletin board[s]”, as well comment posting. This will effectively make it easier for authorities to target those vocalising subversive opinions online.
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 After four violent attacks on schoolchildren in a month, reports of the incidents began to be withdrawn.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.
05 May 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
The dissident human rights lawyer — missing for over a year until he resurfaced last month — has been reported missing again by his family. In early April, Gao gave a series of interviews to the western media publicly renouncing activism. He boarded the Beijing-bound flight from Urumqi on 20 April but his whereabouts are now unknown. Critics speculate that his reappearance was “a ploy to try to demonstrate to the outside world that he had not been mistreated”.
