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I have been looking for pictures of Gao Yaojie while she is visiting in the US this month. I found a few of them but they were either taken too far away or Gao was looking a bit depressed due to the pressure she has been experiencing from the Chinese authorities. During an in-studio interview with Radio Free Asia – Mandarin Service, Gao asked the RFA reporter whether she looked numb when she was on stage receiving the Vital Voices award. It is sad to see a heroine unable to enjoy being acknowledged for her work to save lives.
There is one nice picture I found of Gao’s one-on-one meeting with Senator Hillary Clinton. The picture was hijacked to the front page of the March 20th issue of Southern Metropolis Daily, a newspaper based in Guangdong of China, as reported by the China Media Project.
A nice surprise I found is the Letter to the Editor published in the New York Times on February 22nd. The letter was written by the spokesman of the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC denying Gao Yaojie being placed under house arrest. But the house arrest was criticized in an editorial appeared in the Southern Metropolis Daily on February 26th. Meanwhile, other major newspapers in China reported on the Vital Voices award but mentioned no details of why Gao was awarded. The media in China is often conflicting themselves because most of them impose self-censorship while a few others are trying to report the truth risking great consequences.
China Media Project posted the results of a brief study on the discussion of “rights” in three Communist party publications and three commercial publications in China. While the term “human rights” is often avoided due to the Chinese government’s sensitivity, the term “rights protection” is appearing more often in Chinese media. Looking at the chart posted by CMP, the number of appearances of “rights protection” in party publications was on the rise from 2002 to 2004 and it decreased since then. The trend for commercial publications is a steady increase although many journalists experienced job loss, detention and even jail sentence, and at its worst, the authorities would shut down a newspaper altogether. In January 2006, the popular weekly newspaper supplement Freezing Point (or Bingdian in Chinese) got closed by the authorities and then reopened after some serious criticism from former party officials.
Even without the CMP’s study, the increased in social unrest around the country in recent years shows that Chinese citizens are becoming more aware of their rights. The constant crackdown on local demonstrations might be a tactic to prevent a nation wide protest like the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests but it does not solve the root cause of human rights neglect.
Related news and links:
- China Media Project: Discussion of “rights” and their protection on the rise in Chinese media
- The Times (UK): China admits social unrest threatens party’s iron grip
- Xinhua News Agency: China strives to prevent, handle mass incidents
The so-called Internet Society of China is talking about setting up a real-name blogger registration system. The ISC Secretary General said, “a real name system will be an unavoidable choice if China wants to standardize and develop its blog industry.” First of all, what is the “blog industry”? Blogging is an act of exercising the right to freedom of expression. It’s not an industry! The culture of blogging is flourishing in China and it does not need “standardize and develop.”
Although it is not yet an official policy, the discussion of such as a system posts a threat to bloggers around the world. If it becomes successful in China, other countries that also censor the internet might follow the foot steps and even use the Chinese system as the basis for their systems. All bloggers should join forces to protest any further discussion of this system in China. You can email the ISC but it’s the least anonymous way to go. So, snail mail to:
Internet Society of China
Tower A East
Tianyin Plaza
No.2-B South Fuxingmen Ave
Beijingshi 100031
People’s Republic of China
Related news and links:
- Xinhua News Agency: Blog real name system not yet officially decided
- EastSouthWestNorth (blog): The Real-Name Blogger Registration System
- China Media Project: Debate over blog registration highlights issue of new media and the right to free expression in China
- China Media Project: Internet Society of China says blog registration system to “balance personal privacy and national interests”
- BBC News: China may make bloggers give ID
- Internet Society of China: English and Chinese sites
While I was surfing the Global Voices website a few days ago, I read about the Journalist’s Day in China celebrated on November 8th. The day was officially marked by the Communist Party in 2000. According to the post on Global Voices, the day’s history traced back to a reporter, Liu Yu-sheng of the newspaper, Jiang Sheng Daily. He was prosecuted by the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party that lost the civil war in China and fled to Taiwan) in 1932 and executed in 1933 under the charge of pro-communist stand. Later, it was discovered that Liu had written investigative report criticizing the local government. However, the post on China Media Project seems more fitting because the All-China Journalists Association was founded on November 8, 1937. Anyhow, the Communist Party observed the day giving out awards and all while media censorship continues.
There was some good news with cyber-dissident and pro-democracy activist, Jiang Lijun released from prison after serving four years. Others like Shi Tao and Li Zhi remained in prison. Media censorship is not new as evidenced in the life of China’s first journalism rebel Shao Piaoping. During Shao’s days, he was fighting the country with one man’s will “to die as a journalist.” In this day and age, I hope more people will join this fight so we won’t see any more journalists’ lives taken away.
