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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”112409″ img_size=”large”][vc_column_text]China has just revoked the press credentials of three journalists from the Wall Street Journal after the newspaper refused to apologise for a column called China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia. The journalists – Josh Chin, Philip Wen and Chao Deng – have each established a strong reputation for their reporting from China. The column that angered Chinese officials, here, is an opinion piece written by the academic Walter Russell Mead. Chin, Wen and Deng have been given just five days to leave.
This is not the first time China has expelled journalists working for newspapers that publish the “wrong” kind of news story, though to expel three at once is a serious act of aggression (the first time in the post-Mao Zedong era the government has expelled multiple journalists from one international news organisation at the same time). It’s another example of the lengths China will go to to stifle criticism at home and abroad. Back in 2014, New York Times reporter Austin Ramzy was the victim of similar treatment, following a story about the family wealth of a former high level official, Wen Jiabao. We interview Ramzy about what it was like having to leave China.
Index: When your visa was not renewed back in 2014, do you remember how you felt at the time?
Ramzy: When I was forced out in 2014 I was sad to leave the place where I had lived and worked the previous seven years, frustrated at the circumstances it was happening under and a bit overwhelmed at being at the centre of a news story.
Index: How logistically easy was it to leave? You had more time than five days, but was it still rushed and hard?
I had been working at TIME, but after I moved to the New York Times I was not given a new journalist visa. At the end of 2013 I was given a one-month humanitarian visa, basically to give me time to pack up. I sent my dog home to live with my sister, stored most of my stuff in a friend’s basement and went to Taiwan with a couple suitcases.
I had a month to prepare. Five days to leave would be very difficult. I do know the journalists being forced out and wish them the best during a very difficult time.
Index: What was it like working immediately after?
Ramzy: Returning to work was a strange feeling but it was also a welcome sort of normalcy.
Index: It’s another huge blow and sign of how much less room there is for free expression under Xi Jinping compared to Hu Jintao.
Ramzy: The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said this was the first expulsion, rather than a visa non-renewal, that it knew of since 1998. And I can’t think of a time when so many journalists were forced out at once. So yes, it seems clear the environment is getting worse.
Index: Have you been back to China (mainland) since?
Ramzy: I have been back to the mainland a few times to see friends, but not for work as a journalist.
Index: Does it make you sad that you can’t report from China?
Ramzy: I’m in Hong Kong now, so I still help cover China and there’s plenty to keep me busy.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”112213″ img_size=”large”][vc_column_text]The world has been transfixed by news coming out of China since the outbreak of coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The running death toll currently sits at nearly 500, with a further 24,000 people in China confirmed as having been infected. But are these the real numbers? Is China, a country whose government is notorious for censorship and control of information, revealing the whole truth? And how are they handling a crisis in which people having the correct information could be the difference between life and death? We report on the five key trends that are having an impact on the accurate reporting of the virus.
Suppress the news
It got off to a bad start. Local authorities in Wuhan did not speak out about the deadly outbreak when it began, even allowing Lunar New Year gatherings to go ahead, knowing people in attendance were infected. This initial suppression of information about the virus could be attributed to the authoritarian, centralisation of power and intelligence in China. Local authorities must wade through levels of bureaucracy to gain the verification needed from the higher offices to release vital information to their local residents.
And media were warned to stick to the party line; one widely read commercial newspaper in Wuhan, Wuhan Evening News, did not feature the outbreak on its front page between the 6 and 19 January. Today, it’s much the same. Bad news isn’t news.
Arrest, arrest, arrest
In the early days of the outbreak, the authorities in Wuhan tried to silence people who attempted to warn others about the spread of coronavirus. Eight people in Wuhan were arrested for speaking out on social media, including a doctor working to treat the infected. Li Wenliang, from Wuhan Central Hospital, sent a message to some of his colleagues telling them he had noticed several patients infected with a Sars-like disease. Four days later authorities arrived at Li’s home, accused him of spreading misinformation and forced him to sign a document which called for his silence.
The charge of spreading misinformation has since been used against many others, such as a social media user in the city of Tianjin near Beijing, who criticised the government’s response. He was arrested for 10 days and accused of publishing “insulting speech”.
The government continues to threaten long jail terms for people who criticise the government’s response.
Scapegoat easy targets
In a story twist, President Xi Jinping has allowed posts criticising local Wuhan authorities for their slow response to circulate on social media. Keen to preserve his image as an infallible leader, Xi has been happy to allow small government bodies to become scapegoats for the crisis. Xi has also shied away from the spotlight in the government’s handling of coronavirus, presumably not wishing to be associated with it, and has appointed Li Keqiang to a leadership position in controlling the outbreak. Is this a typical approach of Xi Jinping’s? Perhaps. China historian Jeff Wasserstrom explores how the Chinese leader carefully manages his image in the new Index on Censorship magazine.
Flood the web with “good virus” news stories
State media have saturated news feeds with stories of hospitals being built at breakneck speed to accommodate the waves of infected people and other stories of just how well China is handling the outbreak. Footage of the construction of a new hospital is even being live streamed online. Despite this apparent transparency of the government’s actions, state media and government officials shared an image of a building claiming it was a completed hospital in Wuhan, when it was in fact an apartment building more than 600 miles away.
Working alongside the media are China’s 50 cent party members – aka the government’s army of trolls who are known for their online praise.
Block the flow of people – and information
Seventeen cities, which are collectively home to over 50 million people, have been put on lockdown so far, restricting the movement of people throughout China. While this may be a practical move to reduce the spread of the infectious disease, it also halts the spread of information between Chinese citizens. People are forced to rely on the information given to them by the authorities, who, during the early days of the outbreak, falsely assured people coronavirus could only be passed on from an animal, and not between people. Or they’re going online to be greeted by photos of shiny hospitals being built in a week. Either way, it’s not great.
Click here to read about how the Chinese government responded to Sars and here for articles on how the Chinese government has used censorship over the years.
Read about how Allied governments during the First World War suppressed news of Spanish flu here. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”In the winter 2019 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, editor-in-chief Rachael Jolley argues that a new generation of democratic leaders is actively eroding essential freedoms, including free speech” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”And that’s the lesson for media everywhere. Don’t let them divide and rule you” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”How macho leaders hide their weakness by stifling dissent, debate and democracy” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2019%2F12%2Fmagazine-big-noise-how-macho-leaders-hide-weakness%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2019 Index on Censorship magazine looks at how male leaders around the world are using masculinity against our freedoms[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”111045″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/09/magazine-border-forces-how-barriers-to-free-thought-got-tough/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”111830″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“When I talk about what’s happening in Saudi Arabia, I liken it to a really abusive relationship. First they [the state] gaslight you, they try to convince you that you’re not being abused, that this actually is for your own protection, for your best interests. Then when that doesn’t work out, then they beat you up and… when you escape from them they hunt you down and kill you,” said Safa Al Ahmad, award-winning Saudi Arabian journalist, at the launch of the winter 2019 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
The issue is on the techniques that macho leaders around the world are using to stifle dissent, democracy and discussion, and how people are fighting back. From Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ranting against and disparaging media to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán using a rhetoric of family values to deny the LGBT community and others the same rights as “traditional” nuclear families, the magazine takes a global view.
Al Ahmad was joined for a panel discussion, held at Google HQ in London, with bestselling Chinese novelist Xiaolu Guo, Hungarian activist Dóra Papp and satirist and author Rob Sears. The panel was chaired by Rachael Jolley, editor-in-chief of Index on Censorship magazine.
Each panellist was invited to discuss a world leader. Al Ahmad opened with her striking analogy of abusive relationships to discuss Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman. She highlighted that her analogy was not an exaggeration, citing women’s rights campaigners who have ended up dead or in prison. “I think the feminist movement in Saudi must have been the most frightening for the state,” she said, explaining the lengths the state has gone to in order to silence women.
Al Ahmad also remarked on the absolutist relationship the Saudi state has with the media: “We [Saudi Arabia] have inventing the rulebook on shutting down dissent of any sort, so the state owns all the media. There is no independent media whatsoever to shut buyout – they already own it.”
Papp observed that Orbán has not locked up or killed dissenters “yet”, but that he is at the stage of attempting to create a sense of discord amongst Hungarians, thereby preventing unified protest. She said: “What this kind of leadership from Orbán is really pro in is… making the nation believe that they have to stay divided in order to protect their own identities and their own values.”
Family values is part of the rhetoric of Orbán’s government, which “concludes in a list of disadvantages for LGBT groups, for single mothers, for anyone who is thinking outside the box”. Papp, a successful campaigner, said that we need to be really cautious and not let this narrative divide people.
Guo, discussing China’s president Xi Jinping, spoke about the importance of a dominating personality in a “strongman” leader in order to control the narrative of a country. She said of Xi: “He has an extremely tough way of dealing with internal turmoil but also a very interesting and mysterious way of dealing with international conflict.” She also commented that tension between Xi and US President Donald Trump seems to be bringing about a cold war that “we thought had disappeared 20 years ago”.
A discussion about macho men would not be complete without a dissection of the presidency of Trump, which Sears did by observing how Trump stifles free expression, not by killing journalists, but by setting the media agenda. Sears highlighted two of Trump’s oratory traits: “One is that he is basically impossible to ignore and the other is that he is basically impossible to engage with.”
He explains that Trump’s repeated use of outrageous, implausible (think “build the wall” and “lock her up”) but clear images forces the media to report on them. He said: “You [journalists] can’t help but respond to them and make them the focus of attention, meaning that it’s tricky for other topics to make it into the highest levels of conversation.”
“I’m sure every politician finds the right language for that purpose. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson cleary does and some of the other leaders we’ve talked about do as well… I don’t know if they are deliberate methods… but I do think that it’s been extremely effective against a decent, fruitful public debate in the states and worldwide.”
Click here to read more about the current magazine
Listen to Rachael Jolley and deputy editor of the magazine, Jemimah Steinfeld, discuss the current issue on Resonance radio here [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]