The story of Dhondup Wangchen, filmmaker jailed in China
On the same day that historic protests started by monks in Lhasa began and were to sweep all over Tibet in the subsequent months, Dhondup Wangchen was nearly 3,000 kilometers away in Xian, in China’s Shaanxi province. It was the last day of filming for his documentary film project that sought to give voice to…
Seen and heard at CPJ benefit: ‘The pen is not broken’
Small in stature but strong in her words, Naziha Réjiba tells a reporter of all the things the Tunisian government does to try to frighten her. But Réjiba said that she will not be scared, that she will never allow such tactics to have power over her. Editor of Kalima, an online news Web site blocked in…
Shakeup at China’s leading investigative magazine
You wouldn’t have heard it from her, but Hu Shuli resigned from her post as editor of Caijing magazine on Monday. The battle over political coverage and finances at Caijing (cai is “finance” and jing is “economics”) had been reported for about three months, but the missing component in the coverage was Hu herself—she has…
Toronto’s Citizen Lab uses forensics to fight online censors
A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate in real time governments and…
China’s Green Dam finally cracks
The Chinese government backed away on Thursday from its attempt to mandate censorship software, “Green Dam” and “Youth Escort,” on personal computers, a move that was previously delayed. Ministry of Industry and Information Technology official Li Yizhong denied there was ever an intention to require pre-installation of the programs on Thursday, saying the government’s May…
Learning to read the tea leaves: Reporting in China
While the general trend in China is toward a more open environment, there is a tendency toward “soft harassment” by police, who threaten retribution to sources and news assistants for helping foreign journalists rather than interfering directly with the journalists themselves.
‘The mob turned on us’: Foreign reporters in Xinjiang
Chinese authorities have, unusually, welcomed foreign reporters to Xinjiang since ethnic rioting broke out on Sunday in Urumqi between the Uighur minority and Han Chinese. A Beijing-based agency has even offered to facilitate travel, according to one writer who blogs from Shanghai. (CPJ hasn’t confirmed his story. Have any other reporters been approached in this…
China: Some surprises, some old news in Xinjiang
Security forces were protecting, rather than harassing, international journalists covering riots in northwestern Xinjiang this week–a welcome change. A few have reported official interference since Sunday. But during previous outbursts of ethnic unrest in China’s Tibetan and Uighur autonomous regions, security forces have repeatedly antagonized and expelled the foreign press corps. Foreign reporters this week…