Q&A: Filmmaker talks Ai Weiwei and jailed activists
Three years after a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan province in May 2008, CPJ spoke to documentary filmmaker Alison Klayman. The director is working on the upcoming “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” about the recently detained Chinese artist who documented the aftermath of the earthquake and published the names of children killed in the collapse of frail…
Al-Jazeera journalist pans China’s Libya coverage
In reporting on the Libyan conflict, China’s media “emphasize only the humanitarian disasters caused by Western air bombardments, and [report] sparingly if at all on the violent suppression and massacre of the people by Qaddafi,” Al-Jazeera’s Beijing bureau chief, Ezzat Shahrour, writes on his blog. Chinese readers so far have been largely supportive of his…
China seizes critics as domestic media avert eyes
The Chinese security apparatus is kidnapping government critics, unchallenged by the domestic press. Writer Yang Hengjun, who went missing in March and has since reappeared, criticized the Chinese press this week for failing to report on his enforced disappearance. While state media are accusing the missing artist and social critic Ai Weiwei of plagiarism and…
European Parliament must speak out on China abuses
New York, April 6, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on members of the European Parliament to strongly criticize the Chinese government’s apparent detention of artist and social activist Ai Weiwei. The European Parliament is convening an emergency debate Thursday on Ai’s disappearance, which may be the latest unlawful detention in the government’s onslaught against…
Mainstream journalists also targeted in China crackdown
New York, March 30, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the dismissal of two Guangzhou-based journalists who advocate for political reform amid tightening restrictions on free expression. While several bloggers and activists have disappeared or been detained in the last month after anonymous calls for demonstrations in support of political reform were published…
CPJ calls on China to stop inhibiting international press
New York, March 7, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists rejects statements by a Chinese government official that international reporters are not being detained, attacked, and harassed in China. CPJ calls on the police to end their anti-media attempts to stop foreign journalists from reporting on possible anti-government demonstrations in what has become known as the…
Foreign journalists detained in China’s ‘Jasmine’ protests
New York, February 28, 2011–Chinese security officials’ concerted attack on the foreign press in a busy commercial street near Tiananmen Square in Beijing Sunday is a return to the restrictions international reporters faced before they were eased in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
China detains, censors bloggers on ‘Jasmine Revolution’
New York, February 25, 2011–China’s censors tightened Internet controls and security officials harassed and detained writers and activists in the wake of an online appeal for a “Jasmine Revolution” in China, according to international human rights groups and news reports. The apparent crackdown came in advance of two top legislative meetings, the National People’s Congress…
Lawyer’s footage of house arrest published in China
Men in plainclothes recently harassed at least six foreign journalists in Shandong province. Vivid news footage shoes a group pelting CNN reporter Stan Grant and his photographer with rocks when they tried to visit the home of an activist under house arrest. Brice Pedroletti from France’s Le Monde, Stephane Lagarde with Radio France Internationale, and…