February 2006 Archives
Reuters | The Epoch Times International
February 25, 2006
BEIJING — Chinese police detained two underground Roman Catholic priests this week and has held a 70-year-old bishop for three months, the U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation said.
Word of the Feb. 17 detentions of Lu Genjun, 44, and Guo Yanli, 39, while waiting for a friend at a train station in Baoding in northern Hebei province, came ahead of a visit to the United States by President Hu Jintao, expected in April.
It is unclear why the pair were taken into custody. Lu was being held at an undisclosed location, while Guo was sent to a detention centre in Xushui county, the foundation said in a statement seen on Friday.
Beijing has had no ties with the Vatican since 1951 and insists relations cannot be resumed unless the Holy See severs links with self-ruled Taiwan, which China has claimed as its own since their split at the end of their civil war in 1949.
China says its Catholics must belong to a state-backed church that does not recognise the Pope's authority. The United States has often criticised China for its intolerance of religion.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
Published: Feburary 25, 2006
TURIN, Italy (AP) -- Three Tibetan activists on Friday marked their 11th day on a hunger strike to oppose the choice of Beijing as the 2008 Olympic host.
The hunger strike was being led by 75-year-old Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan activist who said he spent 33 years in a Chinese prison for his involvement in the independence movement.
He is demanding China first end its ''military occupation'' of his homeland before it hosts the Olympics.
''I'm glad I'm able to contribute to the movement somehow,'' he said from a tent on the grounds of an 18th-century cemetery in downtown Turin.
Gyatso, who traveled to Turin from his self-imposed exile in India, claimed to have drank only water and eaten no food since the strike began. Visibly gaunt, he said he had lost 22 pounds since the strike began.
China claims Tibet has been part of its territory for at least seven centuries, but many Tibetans say they were an independent nation for most of that time.
Rights groups such as Amnesty International have accused China, which invaded Tibet in 1951, of widespread human rights abuses. Others accuse Chinese authorities in Tibet of carrying out executions without due process and engaging in torture and arbitrary arrest.
BBC News
February 23, 2006
Cartoons that blend live-action actors with animation are to be banned from TV in China.
Shows such as Teletubbies and the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? could be affected by the decision taken by the country's main TV and film regulator.
The move is aimed at promoting Chinese animators and apparently curbing the use of foreign cartoons.
China's State Administration of Radio Film and Television said people who flout the ban will be punished.
BBC News
February 21, 2006
Google has denied accusations that its new Chinese-language search engine is operating without a licence.
It follows a report in the Beijing News that Google did not have the correct paperwork for its China site.
The web giant has rejected the allegation, saying it was operating under the licence of its business partner, Ganji.com.
Google's China service blocks politically sensitive material to comply with Chinese censorship rules.
Reporters Without Borders | Reporters Sans Frontieres
February 17, 2006
Reporters Without Borders is sickened by cynicism of the Publicity Department (formerly Propaganda Department) which has authorised the reappearance of the Bing Dian (Freezing point), supplement of the daily Zhongguo Qingnian Bao (China Youth Daily) after removing its editor and best investigative journalist.
Elsewhere, two journalists, one in Xinjiang in the north-west and the other in Beijing have recently been punished for investigating sensitive topics.
"The reappearance of Bing Dian is an act of bogus leniency. The investigative weekly has had its two prime movers cut away and replaced by a loyal communist party journalist," said Reporters Without Borders.
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By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
February 18, 2006
LANZHOU, China, Feb. 17 — The controversy over news media censorship in China continued Friday as two editors who had been removed from a feisty weekly journal, Freezing Point, issued a public letter lashing out at propaganda officials and calling for free speech.
Meanwhile on Friday, a group of prominent scholars and lawyers who had contributed articles to the journal wrote an open letter to President Hu Jintao, denouncing the crackdown against Freezing Point as a violation of the Chinese Constitution and of the promise made by top leaders for a consistent rule of law.
The two broadsides came as intellectuals and some former party officials have sharply criticized the recent increase in censorship of the news media. Propaganda officials, who shut down Freezing Point last month, announced this week that the publication would restart March 1, but without the top two editors.
In their public letter, which was released in Beijing, the two editors, Li Datong and Lu Yuegang, defended their stewardship of Freezing Point and made an ardent plea for freedom of expression, saying it was the role of the news media to investigate "unfairness in the world."
"What do the people want?" they wrote. "The freedom of publication and expression granted by the Constitution."
As for the plan to resume publication of Freezing Point, the editors added: "The newspaper run by the taxpayers' money is forced to publish the trash of the propaganda officials. This is a crime and an abuse of power."
By Ben Blanchard | REUTERS
February 15, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is being forced on the defensive over its media censorship policies, fending off attacks from United States and even, unexpectedly, its own aging Communist Party officials.
This week, Beijing has had to defend its controls over the Internet, just days after U.S. Web giants faced bipartisan criticism in Congress for bowing to Chinese government demands to block sites and help track down critics who communicate online.
At the same time, a former secretary to Chairman Mao Zedong and a dozen other senior Chinese scholars and ex-officials denounced the shutting down of an investigative weekly as a "historic incident".
And the U.S. State Department has set up a task force to help American technology companies protect freedom of expression in countries like China that censor online content.
By Stephen Gregory | The Epoch Times
February 9, 2006
Chinese communist regime thugs commit act of terror inside the U.S.
At noon on February 8th, two armed men forced themselves into the home in Atlanta of Epoch Times Chief Technical Officer Mr. Yuan P. Li, beating him and stealing two of his laptops. After Mr. Li managed to free himself from the extension cord used to bind him, he was taken to an area hospital for treatment. His statement describing this attack is published below.
This crime, occurring in a very safe area in Atlanta and done without concern for the taking of valuables, breaks new ground in the Chinese Communist regime's campaign against The Epoch Times.
That campaign has previously taken the form of arresting Epoch Times staff inside mainland China, and, outside mainland China, systematically stealing newspapers, attempting to intimidate advertisers, applying pressure to deny Epoch Times staff the opportunity to cover events at which Chinese government officials appear, and threatening the family members inside mainland China of Epoch Times staff living outside China.
In addition, The Epoch Times in Malaysia has been blocked from publication due to the Chinese regime's interference, according to press watchdog groups. Also, Epoch Times offices in Sydney and Toronto have received in the mail suspicious envelopes that were suspected of containing toxic materials.
By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
February 12, 2006
SO what does the Dalai Lama look like, anyway?
Chinese Tibetans or other Buddhists who might be curious could try finding images of the spiritual leader on Google.cn, a new search engine that Google tailored for China and is now, two weeks after its unveiling, on full display to local Web users.
Is he that guy with puffy cheeks wearing a Western suit? No, that's Liu Jianchao, China's foreign ministry spokesman, demanding that the Dalai Lama stop trying to split the motherland. What about that balding man leading a big delegation? No, that's Chen Yi, a late Chinese vice prime minister, offering grain to the Tibetan people.
Only one of the 161 images produced by searching in Chinese for the Dalai Lama on Google.cn shows the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet since 1940. He is pictured as a young man meeting senior Chinese officials. That was before 1959, when China's People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled into exile.
For people outside China, or Chinese who can circumvent the Internet firewall, the 2,030 images on unfiltered Google.com favor the Dalai Lama of today. He is the genial-looking guy in the burgundy and saffron robe, here meeting President Bush, there speaking to 40,000 people in New Jersey.
The Epoch Times
February 8, 2006
By Dynamic Internet Technology
Various searches were recently performed comparing google.com and its communist version, google.cn. The tests occurred between Jan 25 and Feb 3. It was determined that google.cn is using two blacklists to censor results. Additionally, both www.google.com when accessed from China and www.google.cn, include more web pages from China in their search results. Combined with Google's best search ranking technologies, google.cn has become a crown-jewel in the Party's propaganda system.
1. Impact on User Results
On issues that are highly sensitive to the CCP regime, a search within "all sites" will be silently limited to websites inside China. This ensures that results will closely follow the Party's line.
As an example, search results for the Chinese word "Falun Gong" on both google.com and google.cn return dramatically different results. Half of the search results from google.com are websites outside of China ("overseas") and are supportive of Falun Gong. All search results from google.cn are filled with slander.
Hao Wang - San Francisco Chronicle - SFGate.com
February 10, 2006
The San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce's decision to bar Falun Gong from Saturday's Chinese New Year parade has grabbed headlines and raised concerns about discrimination. However, what is flying under the radar is the simple question of why the local participation of this meditation group -- known for its slow-moving exercises, colorful parades and history of being persecuted by the atheist Chinese communist government -- would cause so much international commotion?
A line from The Chronicle's Jan. 31 article on the parade controversy provides some clue: "The dispute reaches around the globe: Beijing's government has a strong interest in cultivating the loyalty of Chinese people overseas." So, what is seemingly at stake -- at least in part -- is Beijing's ability to retain the loyalty of Chinese communities in the United States, many of whom have formed their own identities. In San Francisco, this translates to a clash of identities. On one hand is the traditional Chinese culture, celebrated by American-born Chinese, permanent residents and recent immigrants alike as their precious cultural heritage. On the other hand is the communist-flavored, nationalistic representation of China that aims for the global unity of all Chinese. The latter aspiration is what Beijing's communist leaders hope to cultivate.
BBC News
February 9, 2006
The internet giant Yahoo has been accused of providing China with information that led to the jailing of a second internet writer.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders claims that Yahoo released data which led to the arrest of Li Zhi.
The online writer was jailed for eight years in 2003, after posting comments that criticised official corruption.
Last year Yahoo was accused of giving information to Beijing which led to the imprisonment of reporter Shi Tao.
Reporters Without Borders called on Yahoo to release the names of all internet writers whose identities it has revealed to the Chinese authorities.
by REUTERS | The New York Times
February 8, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese civil rights campaigner who was assaulted by thugs this week was unreachable and appeared to have gone missing on Wednesday after announcing plans to stage a hunger strike outside Beijing's leadership compound.
Yang Maodong's activism set him on a collision course with the Communist Party, which has tightened its grip on power and intensified crackdowns on rights campaigners, lawyers, journalists and academics.
Yang, who goes by the pen name of Guo Feixiong, did not tell his closest friends beforehand of his plans to begin a two-day hunger strike outside the front door of the Zhongnanhai leadership compound on Wednesday, AIDS activist Hu Jia said by telephone.
Security is tight round-the-clock in and around Zhongnanhai -- China's political heart -- with uniformed soldiers standing guard at the entrance, plainclothes patrolling the area, police vans parked on the sidewalk and surveillance cameras perched on its walls.
Yang's cell phones were turned off on Wednesday.
BBC News
February 7, 2006
A Chinese editor has died as a result of a police beating he received for his paper's reporting on corruption, journalists and rights groups say.
Wu Xianghu had been in hospital since the attack in October, suffering from an existing liver problem made worse by the beating, earlier reports said.
Wu was reportedly attacked by some 50 policemen after his paper accused them of charging illegal bicycle fees.
China's media have reported a string of torture and coercion cases by police.
Wu died of liver and kidney failure on Thursday, according to Lu Weibo, a reporter with the Taizhou Evening News, who wrote the article believed to have provoked the beating.
The article accused the local police of charging illegal fees for registering electric bicycles.
Local media reported widely on the beating, but have been silent on Wu's death, possibly reflecting its sensitivity.
BBC News
February 3, 2006
US congressmen have condemned major IT firms including Microsoft and Google for helping China censor the internet.
Members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus said four US firms were putting profits before American principles of free speech.
The hearing follows Google's decision to block politically sensitive terms from its new Chinese search site.
Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco and Google were also criticised for not attending the hearing in Washington.
Yahoo and Microsoft defended themselves in a statement, saying they did not have the power to force change on governments.
Their services had, they said, "enabled far wider access to independent sources of information for hundreds of millions of individuals in China and elsewhere".
'Caved in'
Tom Lantos, top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, said: "There has been a string of disturbing incidents in which US-based Internet companies have bowed to pressure from Beijing."
"These massively successful high-tech companies, which couldn't bring themselves to send representatives to this meeting today, should be ashamed. They caved in to Beijing for the sake of profits."
The Chinese government enforces strict laws on internet use, blocking content it considers a threat, including references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and notable dissidents.
Reporters Without Borders
January 2006
Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage today at the news blackout imposed by the Chinese authorities on a visit by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, which no Chinese news media has mentioned. One official after another at every level has repeatedly denied that any such visit is taking place.
“This is not so much a lack of transparency as an orchestrated state lie to protect the planet’s worst dictator,” the press freedom organisation said. “Are the Chinese authorities ashamed of their troublesome ally.”
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Reporters Without Borders
January 31, 2006
Reporters Without Borders urged the release of journalist Li Yuanlong, who was arrested on 29 September 2005 by members of the security bureau in Guizhou province in south-west China, after posting articles online exposing local people’s wretched living standards.
“We are outraged by this arrest”, said Reporters Without Borders. “This latest censorship proves the Chinese authorities’ unease over escalating social problems.”
The 45-year-old journalist on Bijie Ribao was on his way to work in the town of Bijie when he was picked up by the security bureau. His home, which was already under surveillance before his arrest, was immediately searched.
His wife, Yang Nushi and his son have not received any news about him and have not been allowed to visit him in prison in Bijie. “He was already in very poor health,” said his wife, who fears he will not survive his prison conditions.
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