Internet: January 2008 Archives

By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
30 January 2008

When state security agents burst into his apartment last month, Hu Jia was chatting on Skype, the Internet-based telephone system. Mr. Hu's computer was his most potent tool. He disseminated information about human rights cases, peasant protests and other politically touchy topics even though he often lived under de facto house arrest.

Mr. Hu, 34, and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, are human rights advocates who spent much of 2006 restricted to their apartment in a complex with the unlikely name of Bo Bo Freedom City. She blogged about life under detention, while he videotaped a documentary titled "Prisoner in Freedom City." Their surreal existence seemed to reflect an official uncertainty about how, and whether, to shut them up.

That ended on Dec. 27. Mr. Hu was dragged away on charges of subverting state power while Ms. Zeng was bathing their newborn daughter, Qianci. Telephone and Internet connections to the apartment were severed. Mother and daughter are now under house arrest. Qianci, barely 2 months old, is probably the youngest political prisoner in China.

For human rights advocates and Chinese dissidents, Mr. Hu's detention is the most telling example of what they describe as a broadening crackdown on dissent as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. In recent months, several dissidents have been jailed, including a former factory worker in northeastern China who collected 10,000 signatures after posting an online petition titled "We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics."

"This is a coordinated cleansing campaign," said Teng Biao, a legal expert who has known Mr. Hu since 2006. "All the troublemakers -- including potential troublemakers -- are being silenced before the Olympic Games."

With fewer than 200 days before the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies, Beijing is in the full throes of preparations. Roads and subway lines are being completed, and the city's new stadiums are nearly finished. But with more than 20,000 journalists expected for the Games, Beijing is also tightening controls over information.

Early this month, the authorities announced that only state-sanctioned companies would be allowed to broadcast video and audio files on the Internet, although the practical effect of that edict remains unclear. China has also extended a crackdown on Internet pornography and "unhealthy" content, a move some rights groups consider a tool for arresting online dissidents.

China has jailed 51 online dissidents -- more than in any other country -- and last year blocked more than 2,500 Web sites, according to Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom advocacy group.

Mr. Hu used his own Web site to post updates about other dissidents or peasant protests. He also did not hesitate to describe his semi-regular encounters with the police and state security officers assigned to monitor him.

"The police force mobilized is much, much larger than before," Mr. Hu told Agence France-Presse in October as the Communist Party clamped down on dissidents during an important political meeting. "Now, they just arrest people very publicly and arbitrarily, without the necessary legal procedures."

Last year, Mr. Hu became involved in the case of Yang Chunlin, the former factory worker who organized the "We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics" petition drive, part of an effort to help local farmers seek legal redress over confiscated land. Mr. Yang was arrested last summer and charged with subverting state power, according to human rights groups.

Mr. Hu told Agence France-Presse that Mr. Yang's arrest was part of a government effort to "clean up" politically touchy cases before the Games.

"I'm helping Yang Chunlin to hire a lawyer," Mr. Hu said. "The authorities have threatened Yang's family and relatives. Yang's wife dares not speak to anyone because of the threats."

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By RADIO FREE ASIA
January 8, 2008

Ordinary Chinese have left numerous support messages online for detained AIDS activist Hu Jia and his wife and baby, who remain under tight restriction at the couple's Beijing apartment. Authorities are meanwhile clamping down on blog posts and comments about Hu, who some believe was detained for his outspokenness around the Beijing Olympics.

"I am a neighbor," read one comment to Zeng's blog, which has now been blocked. "Please tell me how I can deliver baby formula to you."

"This is to add my comment to the others, and to tell the world that the Chinese people love justice and we love the light," said another. "We are praying for you."

The authorities have cut off Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan from telephone and Internet access, effectively detaining her and her baby daughter under house arrest.

Video taken by the couple in recent months shows a team of national security police camped outside the couple's apartment round the clock; the police are turning away any journalists who try to visit Zeng, but she was briefly captured by a UK television crew peering from the window, her baby in her arms.

Chinese blogger Isaac Mao said it had taken some time for the news of Hu's Dec. 27 detention for "subverting state power," to filter through to Chinese netizens, but that now they were reacting.

"They have almost certainly got wind of the news via the overseas media," Mao told RFA's Mandarin service. "Now, a lot of grassroot media in China are reporting Hu Jia's detention."

"Some are even getting together to send Zeng some baby milk powder. There is a lot of concern, because some of the milk powder was not delivered but was intercepted by those guarding the door," Mao said.

"People are not only sending the milk powder but are also making a public record of the fact. People have got used to much more intellectual freedom in the past year or so they are willing to make judgments and even to play a part in spreading the news of events like this," said Mao, a keen proponent of citizen journalism and grassroots Web development.

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By David Barboza | The New York Times
January 18, 2008

More than 100 people are under investigation and several government officials have been detained or removed from office in central China after a dispute in early January in which a group of city officials beat a bystander to death.

The government investigation, which was reported by state-run news outlets here, was touched off by bloggers in China who were outraged that a 41-year-old man had been fatally beaten while trying to use his cellphone to photograph a dispute between villagers and city inspectors.

City officials in Tianmen in Hubei Province in central China are being punished and investigated for their role in the killing of the man, Wei Wenhua, the general manager of a construction company, and the beatings of five villagers during a dispute on Jan. 7, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

The episode is the latest in which bloggers and others have used the Internet to force Chinese authorities to investigate beatings and other abuses by government officials.

With China's economy booming and developers transforming big cities and even small villages with huge building projects, clashes between angry residents and public officials have increased, partly because China's legal system is so ineffective and government corruption is perceived to be widespread.

Large public protests are outlawed in China, but when they do occur, local governments and even big cities often call in the police or other security teams to quash them. Occasionally, the battles become deadly.

On Jan. 7, the government says a dispute in a village near Tianmen broke out because villagers were angry over the dumping of heaps of garbage near their homes. Apparently, some villagers had tried to stop a truck from dumping garbage in their neighborhood.

To put down the protest, the government says, local officials called in a large group of parapolice officials, who are often used to quell uprisings or deal with unlicensed business operations in cities.

Mr. Wei apparently drove by in a car and stopped to photograph the skirmish with his cellphone. He was confronted by government inspectors and beaten to death. It is unclear what happened to the images captured on his cellphone.

Soon after, several large protests took place in Tianmen as residents demanded justice.

Once word of the beating spread, bloggers expressed outrage. One posting asked whether the officials had been city inspectors or a mob.

"Where is justice?" one bulletin board posting read. "Where is the law? Aren't there any rules in China?"

Within days, the government detained the leader of the inspection team and removed Qi Zhengjun, director of the Urban Administration Department in Tianmen.

>> Read the complete report

By Radio Free Asia
04 January 2008

China's government has issued a stringent new set of rules which will ban all but state-owned corporations from making and uploading video to the Internet.

The new regulations were issued jointly Dec. 31 by the Ministry of Information Industry and the Bureau of Film and Television under China's cabinet, the State Council.

"Companies or individuals who do not have an operating license issued by the relevant department, or who have not submitted an application for such a license, must cease to offer online video services," said the regulations, which come into effect Jan. 31.

The move will make it difficult for Chinese netizens to post video to their blogs or to Web sites, or to Chinese video-sharing sites similar to YouTube, including citizen journalism of the kind which has proliferated amid growing civil unrest across the country.

Industry experts estimate that there are currently around 160 sites offering such services in China, and that the majority of them are private enterprises financed by venture capital. Quite a few of them operate without any kind of license from the government.

"There is only one point to these rules, and that is to step up controls over any possible political dissent that might emerge in China," Shaanxi-based cyberdissident Deng Yongliang told RFA's Mandarin service.

"Now that the standard of living is rising for many people, they are beginning to demand more intellectually as well as materially, and such ideological freedom would be a challenge to the current political system," Deng said.

"We are also about to hold the Olympic Games, and so the authorities will continue to step up controls on freedom of expression."

It is currently possible to see video of incidents of social unrest in China, circulating alongside hard and soft porn, and home movies people make to amuse each other.

In one video uploaded to the popular sharing site 56.com, an ordinary citizen visited Beijing's "Petitioner Village", a now-demolished shantytown once housing hundreds of destitute people who lost everything, and who now spend their lives trying to win redress for grievances against the government.

>> Read the complete report

By Associated Press | The Straits Times (Singapore)
January 03, 2008

China has decided to restrict the broadcasting of Internet videos - including those posted on video-sharing websites - to sites run by state-controlled companies and require providers to report questionable content to the government.

It wasn't immediately clear how the new rules would affect YouTube and other providers of Internet video that host websites available in China but are based in other countries.

The new regulations, which take effect Jan 31, were approved by both the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Information Industry and were described on their websites Tuesday.

Under the new policy, websites that provide video programming or allow users to upload video must obtain government permits and applicants must be either state-owned or state-controlled companies.

The majority of Internet video providers in China are private, according to an explanation of the regulations posted on Chinafilm.com, which is run by the state-run China Film Group.

The policy will ban providers from broadcasting video that involves national secrets, hurts the reputation of China, disrupts social stability or promotes pornography.

Providers will be required to delete and report such content.

'Those who provide Internet video services should insist on serving the people, serve socialism ... and abide by the moral code of socialism,' the rules say.

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