28 Jan 14 | China, News and features
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
Measures implemented by Chinese authorities in 2013 are “reminiscent of the Mao era four decades ago,” the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said in a statement accompanying the latest edition of their annual China Press Freedom report.
The press freedom organisation argues that “Chinese authorities continued to tighten their grip on information and media outlets” in 2013.
Among other things, the report — which four journalists from the region contributed to — states that new leader Xi Jiping “set out to strengthen the use of the media as a propaganda tool”. Journalists and bloggers were also forced to make “televised confessions” and “tens of thousands of online messages were deleted, and many websites were shut down”.
The situation for foreign media was also poor, with foreign journalists receiving death threats, and international websites being blocked.
The report also covered Hong Kong and Macau. Journalists in Hong Kong received “verbal and physical abuse” and there were attacks on, and threats to, media owner and outlets. Macau is experiencing “a growing trend to self-censorship”.
The IFJ made a number of recommendations, including calling on the Chinese government to release jailed journalists, stop “arbitrary and unexplained employment terminations” and “order and end to state security misusing the law to intimidate and silence journalists.”
“Press freedom is a human right and the media must be able to perform their professional duties without fear and intimidation,” the group said.
10 Oct 11 | Asia and Pacific, China
This Thursday Hong Kong will host the world premiere of Dr. Sun Yat-sen after China abruptly cancelled the opera’s original world premiere at Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts.
The opera, commissioned by Opera Hong Kong and the Hong Kong government, was to have had its world premiere on 30 September to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Chinese revolution.
Sun is a widely revered Chinese revolutionary who helped bring down the Qing dynasty in 1911.
The official explanation for calling off the opera was “logistical reasons”, but media have been wildly speculating as to a range of other possible causes.
The New York Times cited an unnamed agent who works for the composer’s management company as saying that a Chinese government official simply didn’t like the music.
“I guess because maybe it’s not romantic enough, something like that,” the agent said.
The Financial Times suggests that perhaps the words were too politically sensitive. It quotes Sun’s lines in the first scene: “The Qing court is furious, They are turning our country into a prison! But this cage cannot silence oppositional voices … now there are debates with people urging change.” In the wake of the Arab Spring, the government has become ultra-sensitive over protests occurring in China, it muses.
Hong Kong newspaper the South China Morning Post (subscription only) says mainland sources deny it has anything to do with politics or the opera’s subject matter.
“Things like this happen all the time on the mainland,” it quotes a mainland performing arts musician as saying. “Just a [negative] remark from a leader would do it.”
20 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
In the first sentence of its kind, a farmer from mainland has been jailed for three weeks after setting fire to a Chinese flag in Hong Kong. Zhu Rongchang, 74, from Jiangxi province, pleaded not guilty to flag desecration, arguing that he was exercising his right to free speech. He burned the flag in Golden Bauhinia Square in central Hong Kong on 22 July, in a protest against the Beijing government.
25 Nov 10 | Asia and Pacific, China
On 24 November the South China Morning Post reported that the milk scandal activist, Zhao Lianhai, may be released just weeks after he began his two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. It appears a back-room deal has resulted in Zhao’s application for medical parole being accepted by judicial authorities. According to the Post:
Public pressure from Hong Kong played a crucial role in yesterday’s dramatic twist in the case of jailed melamine milk activist Zhao Lianhai, who will probably be released on medical parole, his supporters say.
It is unprecedented for Beijing to release a mainland convict so soon following lobbying from Hong Kong. In an unusual move, Xinhua’s Hong Kong branch said yesterday morning that a medical parole application from Zhao was being processed.
Zhao was found guilty of “inciting social disorder” after he set up a website for families affected by China’s toxic milk scandal after his own son became sick. The activist has been on hunger strike ever since he was sentenced on 10 November. His wife, Li Xuemei is also on hunger strike. Earlier this week news broke that Zhao had fired his lawyers. In a letter supposedly sent from inside the prison, this, combined with the news he has dropped plans to appeal and sought medical parole raised hopes that he had made a clandestine deal with the authorities.
Hong Kong politicians have credited themselves with Zhao’s possible release — they say the u-turn is the result of public pressure on Beijing: Peng Jian , Zhao’s former lawyer said “Hong Kong is not only helping one person, but the conscience of China”.
As with other sensitive topics in China, the censorship organs, this time the Internet Management Office, has demanded that all mentions of “Zhao Lianhai” be erased from websites, including online forums, blogs and microblogs. Indeed, whilst Twitter is awash with mentions of the case, and a Twitter account for Zhao, its counterpart in the Chinese microblogging sphere, Sina microblog, has no mentions at all.
