Internet: January 2009 Archives

By Michael Bristow | BBC World News
January 21, 2009

China has censored parts of the new US president's inauguration speech that have appeared on a number of websites.

Live footage of the event on state television also cut away from Barack Obama when communism was mentioned.

China's leaders appear to have been upset by references to facing down communism and silencing dissent.

English-language versions of the speech have been allowed on the internet, but many of the Chinese translations have omitted sensitive sections.

Selective editing

China keeps a firm grip on the country's media outlets and censors their news reports as a matter of routine.

Like the rest of the world, it has been keenly following developments in the United States; President Obama's inauguration was front page news.

But the authorities seem not to want ordinary Chinese people to read the full, unexpurgated version of the president's speech.

In his inauguration address, President Obama said: "Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions."

That entire passage was retained for an English-language version of the speech that appeared on the website of state-run Xinhua news agency.

But in the Chinese-language version, the word "communism" was taken out.

President Obama's comments addressed to world leaders who "blame their society's ills on the West" also fell foul of the censor's red pen.

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history," the president said.

Once again, Xinhua included the passage in full in its English version, but the sentence was taken out of the Chinese translation.

Similar changes were made to versions of the speech that appeared on other websites based in China.

And websites were not the only media organisations that struggled to report some of the comments made by President Obama.

China Central Television, the country's main broadcaster, aired the speech live with a simultaneous Chinese translation.

But when the translator got to the part where President Obama talked about facing down communism, her voice suddenly faded away.

The programme suddenly cut back to the studio, where an off-guard presenter had to quickly ask a guest a question.

Censoring sensitive news reports is nothing new in China, where officials go to great lengths to cut critical material.

These officials appear a little nervous about the arrival of a new US President, who might not be as friendly to China as President George W. Bush.

As an editorial in the state-run China Daily put it: "Given the popular American eagerness for a break from the Bush years, many wonder, or worry to be precise, whether the new president would ignore the hard-earned progress in bilateral ties."

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By Agence France-Presse | THE NEW YORK TIMES
January 12, 2009

Amnesty International said Monday that its Web site had again been blocked in China and it urged the government to reopen access to it immediately. Roseann Rife, deputy director of the Asia-Pacific program of Amnesty, a London-based human rights group, expressed fear that the action indicated an expanded crackdown by the Chinese authorities, "particularly as 2009 will see a number of important commemorations." She was referring to the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing, the 30th anniversary of the Democracy Wall movement and the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation.

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The Associated Press | MSNBC.com
January 08, 2009

Veteran campaigner attempted to establish opposition political party

A 65-year-old democracy activist who tried to set up an opposition party in China has been sentenced to six years in jail, a human rights group said Thursday.

A court in Hangzhou, a prosperous city in eastern Zhejiang province, sentenced Wang Rongqing on Wednesday on charges of subverting state power for organizing the banned China Democracy Party, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

Wang was detained in June, two months before the Olympic Games started, the group said. Wang's brother, Wang Rongyao, confirmed the sentence. The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court could not be immediately be reached for comment.

Wang has been repeatedly harassed and detained by police during his years of activism, which started in the late 1970s as China's hard-line Maoist era came to a close and some started calling for democracy. He was detained for two months in 1999.

'Good spirits'
"He was not in good physical condition and he stood in court with the assistance of the police, but he was in good spirits," said Zou Wei, a friend and fellow dissident of Wang who was in court Wednesday.

Founded by dissidents in mid-1998, the China Democracy Party was quashed just six months later by the Communist Party, which allows no challenge to its political monopoly. Dozens of activists were arrested and sentenced to up to 13 years in prison, most on charges of subverting state power.

China allows a small number of officially recognized alternative parties, although they serve as advisers to rather than competitors to the ruling Communist Party.

More than 100 co-signers of a Chinese petition calling for democracy and an end to the dominance of the Communist Party have been harassed or summoned for questioning by police, Chinese Human Rights Defenders said Thursday.

The group said the signers were pressured by police because of their support for "Charter 08," an unusually open call for civil rights and political reforms released early last month.

Lawyers involved in the case could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The rights group also said efforts have been made to stifle information about the charter on the Internet. Searches for "Charter 08" on the three main search engines in China -- Baidu, Google.cn and Yahoo -- turn up blank pages. China routinely censors Web sites that contain unsavory or subversive information.

Calls to the Ministry of Public Security were not answered Thursday.

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