21 Nov 2010 | News and features
Wangyi09’s twitter feed stops abruptly at 7:45AM on October 28. According to human rights groups, the Chinese rights activist, whose real name is Cheng Jianping, was detained later that day for a satirical tweet she had posted on October 17 which mocked anti-Japanese protesters by urging them to destroy the Japanese pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. Her husband-to-be, Hua Chunhui, also a rights activist, said the day she was grabbed by police was to have been their wedding day.
Hua had posted the original tweet which read: “”Anti-Japanese demonstrations, smashing Japanese products, that was all done years ago by Guo Quan [an activist and expert on the Nanjing Massacre]. It’s no new trick. If you really wanted to kick it up a notch, you’d immediately fly to Shanghai to smash the Japanese Expo pavilion.” Cheng re-tweeted it, adding the comment: “Angry youth! Charge!”
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), who spoke to Chen Lei, a deputy chief of police in Xinxiang town, Henan province, Cheng was sentenced to a year of re-education through labour (RTL) on 15 November for “disturbing social order.” Cheng’s age is unclear. Some reports cite her as 46, others as in her twenties. The BBC reports that she is now being held in Shibali River women’s labour camp in Zhengzhou city in Henan.
Two days later, Amnesty came out with a statement calling for her release. “Sentencing someone to a year in a labour camp, without trial, for simply repeating another person’s clearly satirical observation on Twitter demonstrates the level of China’s repression of online expression,” said Sam Zarifi, the organization’s Asia-Pacific director.
Amnesty adds that the police may have been watching Cheng because she had been working as an online activist for several years, including showing support for imprisoned dissident and this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo. Cheng’s twitter account shows her as following the Dalai Lama’s and Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s twitter feeds among others.
10 Nov 2010 | News and features
David Cameron has extolled the virtues of human rights and democracy during his trade mission to Beijing but why won’t he raise the case of imprisoned writer Liu Xiaobo? Dinah Goodman reports
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8 Nov 2010 | Uncategorized
Ai Weiwei, China’s best-known dissident artist, is called God Ai by his supporters. Ai helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics and more recently his Sunflower Seeds installation created a splash at the Tate Modern; but Ai continues to be a thorn in the side of the Chinese state. His blogs and microblogs were long ago been blocked in China after his controversial investigations into events such as non-accidental deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake angered the authorities.
His international standing presents difficulties for the authorities: should he be ignored or co-opted? Ai claims that two years ago, the Shanghai authorities asked him to build a studio to help develop an arts district it was developing to increase the city’s cultural status. Now the same authorities have ordered that his USD$1.1m studio be torn down. They claim the building is illegal — that the correct permissions were never obtained.
Ai declared that he would have one of his sensational parties to “celebrate”: this time everyone would have something in-season to eat: 10,000 river crabs. For anyone in-the-know the word “river crab” is important. According to the New York Times the river crab is:
…a sly reference to the Mandarin word hexie, which means both river crab and harmonious. Among critics of China’s censorship regime, hexie has become a buzzword for opposition to the government’s call to create a harmonious society, free from dissent.
On Friday, Ai was placed under house arrest meaning he would be unable to attend his own party, planned for this weekend. Reports of his angry reaction are here and here.
Ai’s detention focused the media’s attention on the party and the studios pending demolition. Within China there has been criticism and accusations that Ai is seeking free publicity from the foreign media; some argued that he advertised the party for too long, almost seeking a reaction. However much the Western media report it, no reports have appeared in the Chinese press.
Ai’s house arrest was due to end at midnight last night — his supporters took it upon themselves to celebrate in Shanghai without him. Ai told AFP the police left his Beijing home a little earlier at 11pm, too late for him to reach the party. Nonetheless at the Shanghai banquet his fans had their say.
PLUS: READ INDEX ON CENSORSHIP MAGAZINE’S INTERVIEW WITH AI WEIWEI HERE
2 Nov 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Amazon’s Kindle 3G e-reader is becoming popular on China’s grey market for an unexpected reason. It can automatically circumvent the so-called ‘Great Firewall’ of the state’s web censorship. Social networking sites, which Beijing blocks, can be accessed without interference by the Kindle. Amazon say they are not allowed to export the Kindle to mainland China, but many are believed to have entered the country illegally. The 3G Kindle uses global system mobile (GSM) communication technology, which is able to provide WiFi coverage in China.
