23 Mar 2016 | Asia and Pacific, Awards, China
One of China’s leading human rights lawyers and free speech campaigners, Pu Zhiqiang is known particularly for his way with words. “Whether in court or online, he is adept at mixing classical erudition and street vernacular,” said Chinese scholar and a friend of Pu’s Perry Link. “Twitter was made for him, but Twitter is banned in China.”
Since May 2014 Pu’s voice has been silenced, after he was arrested and charged for a series of blog posts. His trial drew huge international attention with many observers calling it a litmus test for freedom of speech in China. He was released in December 2015 to house arrest, and has made no public comment since.
Index asked three of Pu’s friends to tell his story for him.
“He was born on 11 January 1965 in Luanxian, near Tangshan, Hebei Province,” said Tong Yi, who has been a friend of Pu’s since meeting him in 1988. “His father was categorized as ‘landlord’. Therefore, when he grew up in his village, he was discriminated against because of his father. He experienced the devastating earthquake in Tangshan in July 1976.”
“Despite all the hardship he faced in those years, he grew up with an imposing physical build, as well as a standout student with a keen intellect and a photographic memory.”
As a student Pu became involved in the Tiananmen Students’ Movement. He was at Tiananmen Square in 1989, and witnessed the massacre of many of his friends and fellow campaigners. That was a turning point for him, says Link.
“He felt especially bad about the ordinary workers who protested and then died. They were not famous like some of the students and intellectuals, but were called ‘riffraff’ by the government, then slaughtered and forgotten. That experience has haunted Pu and, I believe, has been the anchor for his devotion to human rights law.”
This devotion saw him become a leading human rights lawyer in China, taking on controversial campaigns that earned him a “Robin Hood” reputation.
“Over the past decade, Pu has defended right to freedom of expression in a number of well-known cases,” Professor Hu Yong, China’s leading academic authority on the history of the Internet in China told Index.
His defendants include earthquake activist and writer Tan Zuoren, dissident writer Wang Tiancheng, fellow human rights lawyer Zheng Enchong, Tibetan environmentalist Karma Samdrop, banned writers such Chen Guidi, Chun Tao and Zhang Yihe, and artist Ai Weiwei.
“He also rescued a dozen of villagers facing harsh criminal charge for disclosing local corruption and criticizing officials, and defended a number of outspoken whistleblowing journalists and liberal media outlets against defamation charges,” said Hu Yong.
This work obviously earned him a place on China’s closely-watched list, but Pu knew the law so well he’d always managed to stay on the right side of it, said Link. That was until last year, when he was arrested after attending a small meeting about Tiananmen Square. Pu was later charged with “creating disturbances” and “inciting ethnic hatred” via seven comments posted on the microblogging platform Weibo between July 2011 and May 2014. The posts criticized the central government’s policies in Xinjiang and Tibet that repress minorities’ religious and ethnic identities.
Pu was detained for 19 months, with many prepared for his trial to result in an 8-year-sentence. On 22 December 2015 Pu was finally released, with an unexpected 3-year suspended sentence.
Xinhua, China’s official news agency, claimed Pu had been given “a light punishment…as he confessed his crime honestly, pleaded guilty and repented his guilt.”
“The government’s goal in persecuting Pu was to to quell freedom of speech on the internet,” said Link. “It was as if the government was saying, ‘Look, if we can take free speech away from the country’s leading advocate of free speech, then what can’t we do? EVERYBODY TAKE NOTE.’ It has worked, to some extent. But the story is not over.”
Hu Yong agrees that Pu’s arrest and sentence, even though less harsh than expected, marks a huge step backwards for freedom of speech in China. “Many people saw Pu’s case as a touchstone that would demonstrate whether the rule of law in China has been moving backward or progressing,” Hu Yong wrote for ChinaFile.
“In terms of levels of the government other than the judiciary, some thought that if Pu were to be convicted, it would serve as a weathervane indicating that China is returning to a ‘second Cultural Revolution.’ In fact, there is no need for a touchstone, and the weathervane has long been pointing in the same direction.”
As for Pu’s own future, Hu Yong believes he could lose his right to practice law. Whether his voice as the Robin Hood of China is lost forever is also still to be decided.
“What happens to Pu will depend mostly on how he decides to play his cards from now on,” said Link. “ If he accepts the government’s muzzle, the authorities will leave him alone. If he chooses to speak out again, they will try to re-imprison him or punish him in other ways.”
21 Dec 2015 | Asia and Pacific, China, Magazine, Volume 44.04 Winter 2015
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This is an extract from an article in the Winter 2015 issue of Index on Censorship magazine. You can read the article in full here.
The streets of Dongguan in southern China have been quiet of late. In the past, China’s city of sin would hum to the sound of late-night karaoke bars offering more than just an innocent sing-along. Now these establishments have been forced underground or driven out of business entirely. Their chances of a future are not looking good. On 1 January 2016, new regulations will come into effect that dictate appropriate behaviour for the Communist Party’s 88 million members. As part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, the new rules explicitly ban the trading of power for sex, money for sex, and adultery – but these are the foundations of business in Dongguan.
“In Dongguan, whose reputation, if not economy, practically rests on its skin trade, I’m told by several sources that the trade remains mostly out of sight nearly two years after a television report [led to]a sweeping crackdown,” said Robert Foyle Hunwick, a writer who has visited the city many times to research his forthcoming book The Pleasure Garden: China’s Hidden World of Sex, Drugs and the Super-Rich.
Dongguan is not the only city suffering from this campaign against smut – it has been lights out for many brothels across China. Nor is this crackdown limited to China’s Communist party members, as the January 2016 regulations imply. Instead, it forms part of a broader crackdown on China’s sex industry that has been underway since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.
Enemy number one is internet pornography. In the most recent statistics, from 2014, China accounts for up to 28% of the world’s porn consumption, taking the global lead. It’s a statistic that does not sit well with Xi. Shortly into his term in power, he launched his first anti-pornography crusade, calling for a “benign internet environment”. An attempt was made to clear China’s internet of anything verging on pornography. A similar initiative was launched this summer, following the release of a video featuring a couple having sex in a Uniqlo store. It was the usual drill: sites were blocked or removed and anyone caught facilitating the production or distribution of pornography was arrested.
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16 Dec 2015 | Awards, Events, mobile, Press Releases
A graffiti artist who paints murals in war-torn Yemen, a jailed Bahraini academic and the Ethiopia’s Zone 9 bloggers are among those honoured in this year’s #Index100 list of global free expression heroes.
Selected from public nominations from around the world, the #Index100 highlights champions against censorship and those who fight for free expression against the odds in the fields of arts, journalism, activism and technology and whose work had a marked impact in 2015.
Those on the long list include Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, Angolan journalist Sedrick de Carvalho, website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and refugee arts venue Good Chance Calais. The #Index100 includes nominees from 53 countries ranging from Azerbaijan to China to El Salvador and Zambia, and who were selected from around 500 public nominations.
“The individuals and organisations listed in the #Index100 demonstrate courage, creativity and determination in tackling threats to censorship in every corner of globe. They are a testament to the universal value of free expression. Without their efforts in the face of huge obstacles, often under violent harassment, the world would be a darker place,” Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg said.
Those in the #Index100 form the long list for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards to be presented in April. Now in their 16th year, the awards recognise artists, journalists and campaigners who have had a marked impact in tackling censorship, or in defending free expression, in the past year. Previous winners include Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Argentina-born conductor Daniel Barenboim and Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat.
A shortlist will be announced in January 2016 and winners then selected by an international panel of judges. This year’s judges include Nobel Prize winning author Wole Soyinka, classical pianist James Rhodes and award-winning journalist María Teresa Ronderos. Other judges include Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, tech “queen of startups” Bindi Karia and human rights lawyer Kirsty Brimelow QC.
The winners will be announced on 13 April at a gala ceremony at London’s Unicorn Theatre.
The awards are distinctive in attempting to identify individuals whose work might be little acknowledged outside their own communities. Judges place particular emphasis on the impact that the awards and the Index fellowship can have on winners in enhancing their security, magnifying the impact of their work or increasing their sustainability. Winners become Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Fellows and are given support for the year after their fellowship on one aspect of their work.
“The award ceremony was aired by all community radios in northern Kenya and reached many people. I am happy because it will give women courage to stand up for their rights,” said 2015’s winner of the Index campaigning award, Amran Abdundi, a women’s rights activist working on the treacherous border between Somalia and Kenya.
Each member of the long list is shown on an interactive map on the Index website where people can find out more about their work. This is the first time Index has published the long list for the awards.
For more information on the #Index100, please contact [email protected] or call 0207 260 2665.
19 Oct 2015 | Asia and Pacific, China, mobile, News and features
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
With UK-China relations warming, the president of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, will pay a state visit to the UK from 20-23 October. The UK government hopes the visit will help finalise multibillion-pound deals for Chinese state-owned companies to contribute to the building of two British nuclear power plants.
Many — including the Dalai Lama — are concerned that Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne are putting the desire for profit above concern for human rights.
Xi may be staying in luxury at Buckingham Palace during his visit, but here are just five examples of how respect for free speech in China doesn’t get past the front door:
1. Locking up artists
The soccer-loving Chinese president is due to visit Manchester City Football Club’s stadium with Cameron during his visit. But will he make time for the new exhibition by Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei in London? We won’t hold our breath.
The major retrospective of the artist’s work is currently on show at the Royal Academy of Arts. Ai — whose work is famous for addressing human rights abuses and corruption — has been harassed, beaten, placed under house arrest and imprisoned.
The current London exhibition almost didn’t go ahead as the British Embassy in Beijing turned down Ai’s request for a business visa in connection with his criminal conviction for tax fraud — an accusation he denies. British Home Secretary Theresa May eventually overturned the embassy’s decision, but only after a mass public outcry. This shouldn’t be the height of the British government’s efforts to address Chinese human rights abuses.
2. The use of online “opinion monitors”
China’s Terracotta Army, the 8,000-strong force of sculptures depicting warriors and horses, was purpose-built to protect emperor Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BC, in his afterlife. In the modern day, China’s army of “opinion monitors”, which has been purpose-built to protect China’s current leaders from criticism and dissent, dwarfs anything the Qin dynasty could muster.
Last year, Index on Censorship reported that the Chinese government is expanding its censorship and monitoring of web activity with a new training programme for an estimated two million flies on the firewall.
China’s hundreds of millions of web users increasingly use blogs to condemn the state, but posts are routinely deleted by government employees. In 2012, monitors banned more than 100 search terms relating to the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 and even shut down Google services.
3. Banning books
Often overshadowed by China’s internet censorship, we shouldn’t forget that Chinese authorities have a rich history of restricting free expression in literature. In 1931, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was banned for its portrayal of anthropomorphised animals for fear children would regard humans and animals as equal. During Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, all aspects of arts and culture had to promote and aid the revolution. Libraries full of historical and foreign texts were destroyed and books deemed undesirable were burned.
The country’s post-Mao transition has been marked by a commitment to “modernising”. While the Chinese populace has access to more information than ever before, their leaders’ continuation of banning books on grounds of non-conformity and deviance are anything but modern.
Publications which are still banned — often for perceived politically incorrect content — include the memoirs of Li Rui, a retired Chinese politician and dissident who caused a stir in the CCP by calling for political reform; Lung Ying-tai’s Big River, Big Sea about the Chinese Civil War; and Jung Chang’s best-selling Wild Swans, a history that spans a century, recounting the lives of three female generations in the author’s family.
4. Detaining activists
Recent years have been marked with an intensification of the crackdown on dissent. On 6 March 2015, just days before International Women’s Day, the Chinese government detained a number of high-profile feminist activists. They were accused of creating a disturbance and, if convicted, could have received three-year prison sentences.
The women had been linked to several actions over the years which highlight issues such as domestic violence and the poor provision of women’s toilets, obvious embarrassments to the authorities.
As a result of their detention, China’s small, but increasingly vocal feminist movement was dealt a heavy blow. Demonstrations were cancelled and debate was effectively silenced. Five of the activists were released fairly quickly, but five more were in prison until 13 April, with two being denied treatment for serious medical conditions while in custody.
5. Repressing Uyghur Muslims
China continues to persecute the largely Muslim minority Uyghurs of Xinjiang. A tough system of policies and regulations deny Uyghurs religious freedom and by extension freedom of expression, association and assembly.
The abuse of national security and anti-terror laws to persecute Uyghurs and further deny them freedom of expression was highlighted in the recent ban by the Chinese authorities on 22 Muslim names in Xinjiang in an apparent attempt to discourage extremism among the region’s Uyghur residents. Many children were barred from attending school unless their names were changed.
Ryan McChrystal is the assistant online editor at Index on Censorship
