Chen Ruolin’s win in the women’s 10-meter platform dive today brought China’s gold medal count to 46, and dominated the online headlines. With the closing ceremony just three days away, news outlets are trumpeting the unprecedented victories of the Chinese athletes, now leading their closest competitor, the United States, by 18 gold medals. They are…
About a week ago I mentioned a South China Morning Post article, “Screws tighten on mainland journalists” that outlined a 21-point memo that had come down from the Central Propaganda Department in July, giving guidelines for China’s media coverage during the Olympics. These sorts of directives are typically disseminated across the country, to editors at…
Hong Kong, August 20, 2008–Despite appeals from his employer and questions from the International Olympic Committee, Chinese authorities have continued to bar Radio Free Asia reporter Dhondup Gonsar from traveling to Beijing to cover the Games. Gonsar, an American citizen of Tibetan ethnicity, was one of two journalists for the U.S. government-funded broadcaster whose applications…
Buried in the celebration of China’s now inevitable dominance of the Olympic Games, Xinhua News Agency today reported the death of a former national leader and Mao Zedong’s brief successor with these few words: The Chinese Communist Party’s outstanding party member, a warrior for Communism long tested in his loyalty, a revolutionary for the proletariat, who…
We released another alert about Dhondup Gonsar today. He’s the Tibetan RFA reporter who is stuck in Hong Kong waiting for a visa that RFA was told had been set aside for him and RFA’s Mandarin service reporter Jill Ku Martin. We first raised Dhondup’s case on August 7, and have stayed in touch with…
New York, August 19, 2008—Research published today by OpenNet Initiative says that more than 50 Web sites related to news, human rights, and pro-Tibet groups were blocked in Beijing and in the Olympics’ Main Press Center as the Games were about to begin. Those sites included the Web site of the Committee to Protect Journalists,…
New York, August 19, 2008—Research published today by OpenNet Initiative says that more than 50 Web sites related to news, human rights, and pro-Tibet groups were blocked in Beijing and in the Olympics’ Main Press Center as the Games were about to begin. Those sites included the Web site of the Committee to Protect Journalists,…
OpenNet Initiative is a go-to source for CPJ and anyone else who is interested in fact-based analysis of the Internet. Its academic approach–it’s a consortium of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, the Advanced Network Research Group at…
Even with the world enthralled in the drama of the Olympic Games, the more basic struggles in the rest of China continue to quietly unfold. Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Metropolis Daily) today published a long article with little apparent connection to the Olympics, a rarity these days. It is actually re-posted from Zhejiang Daily, and tells the story of a farming…
Another way of getting around Intent censorship is to use proxy servers. They are basically computers whose addresses or access are not blocked by a country’s filters. You contact one of them and relay your information, say a request to access www.cpj.org (which, by the way, is still blocked as of this morning, according to…