Attacks on the Press in 2008: China
In the year of the “One World, One Dream” Olympics, China’s punitive and highly restrictive press policies became a global issue. International reporters who arrived early to prepare for the Games flocked to cover antigovernment riots in Tibet and western provinces in March and the Sichuan earthquake in May. They encountered the sweeping official interference…
One month before the Olympics, media face huge hurdles
New York, July 8, 2008—One month before the start of the Beijing Olympics, China needs to make enormous progress to ensure the free access it promised journalists when the Games were awarded, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Twenty-six Chinese journalists remain in prison and heavy government censorship remains in place despite Beijing’s broad…
China: Internet journalist sentenced to four years in prison
New York, July 1, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the four-year prison sentence handed down to Nanjing journalist Sun Lin, who was charged with possessing illegal weapons and assembling a disorderly crowd. Sun’s sentence was delivered on Thursday in a hearing closed to his lawyers and family, according to The Associated Press.
Attacks on the Press 2007: China
In a year of internal political wrangling and further emergence on the global stage, Chinese leadership under President Hu Jintao showed a keen awareness of public opinion at home and abroad. But the result was not greater freedom for the press. The administration undertook a clumsy effort to woo the foreign press corps while simultaneously…
Chinese reporter arrested following months of police harassment
New York, June 4, 2007—A Nanjing-based reporter whose online video, audio, and written news reports had angered authorities is in police custody today along with his wife, according to his employer at the U.S.-based news Web site Boxun News. Following the May 30 arrest, police accused Sun Lin (known by his pen name Jie Mu)…