No news on Zhao is good news for Communist Party
News of the coming posthumous publication of Zhаο Ziyаng’s memoirs hit the stands this week–outside China, anyway. Local media did not cover the story on Friday, and officials have yet to comment. Neither the Chinese nor the English version of the book, Prisoner of the State, reportedly transcribed while the former Communist Party general secretary was under house…
One year after Sichuan, six after SARS, 33 after Tangshan
One of our news alerts on Monday detailed the harassment reporters faced as they tried to cover the anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, one of China’s greatest natural disasters. Today, on the anniversary, newspapers marked the event with strong coverage. That’s a world of difference from the years of coverage that obscured the breadth of…
Chinese bloggers often go missing
CPJ’s ranking is helpful in that it makes the world pay attention to countries that censor the Internet. I do not know much about other countries, but I know about China. I believe that the outside world (as well as people within China) cannot actually know how many people are jailed because of Internet speech.…
Truth beyond bars: Jiang Weiping on being jailed for work
Jiang Weiping, a 2001 CPJ Press Feedom Award winner, spoke on Tuesday on a panel organized by the Ford Foundation in Washington, along with CPJ board member Clarence Page and Executive Director Joel Simon. The panel addressed the concerning number of journalists jailed worldwide–125, according to CPJ’s 2008 census–and discussed how advocacy by CPJ and other…
A twisting road to Canada for a Chinese journalist
From his prison cell, veteran Chinese journalist Jiang Weiping wrote a poem to his daughter, Jennifer, which included the lines: “Though the road home has many twists and turns / Your daddy believes that we will be reunited soon.” She was little more than 10 years old when he was imprisoned in 2000 for reporting…
Press freedom in the news 12/17/08
China has blocked access to BBC and VOA Chinese Web sites, according to reports released yesterday. The Associated Press is covering the story with two releases today that both quote CPJ’s Bob Dietz, who said in a statement: “It’s clear that China has no intention of fulfilling the hopes it raised when it was awarded the…
Press freedom in the news 12/10/08
The release of Iraqi journalist Adel Hussein, who had been jailed in Iraqi Kurdistan, is making news today. The Associated Press has coverage of his pardon from President Masoud Barzani, as does Canada’s CBC News. Both articles cite our coverage of the case and quote CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney, who called on the authorities…