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…
China returns to the forefront this morning as the Olympic Games are nearing an end. The Associated Press has a story about human rights groups’ frustration at the lack of outcry, along with protests against myriad rights abuses. The story quotes CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, Bob Dietz, who is working out of Hong Kong. “In…
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…
In the Senegalese capital, Dakar, speculation surrounded Air Transport Minister Farba Senghor after unidentified men using a government vehicle ransacked the newsrooms of 24 Heures Chrono and L’As, two independent newspapers. The attacks came just three days after Senghor threatened unspecified retaliation against the papers over critical stories. CPJ issued an alert on Tuesday, calling…
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…
On a quiet news day, South African Web site Business Day has a story outlining the situation in Zimbabwe, and looks at how limiting press freedom has inhibited peace in the country. In other news out of Africa today, the AllAfrica Web site is running an opinion piece about the state of newspapers in Sierra…
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…
It’s most likely too late to get one of these if you’re already in China, but for the next time you’re going behind any country’s Internet firewall, try to pick up one of these thumb drives. If you’re among the digitally impaired, as I am, it will help you dodge the online cops. All you…
Two articles on the labor exploitation of prisoners in Havana’s Güanajay Prison appeared over the weekend on the Miami-based news Web sites CubaNet and PayoLibre. The articles detailed the use of prisoners as free labor in a local shoe factory, and described the terrible conditions under which the 28 men work. Though not written by…