An Apple Inc subcontractor has slashed a libel claim against two Shanghai journalists, who said workers at a plant making iPods were mistreated, from 30 million yuan ($3.77 million) to just 1 yuan (12 cents) to avoid a major PR disaster. BACKGROUND MUSIC: A woman rides a bicycle past advertisements of Apple Computer's iPod in this Friday, August 18, 2006 file photo in Shanghai, China. Apple...
A Chinese court jailed a reporter for a Singapore newspaper for five years on Thursday on a charge of spying, the latest in a series of high-profile cases underscoring China's curbs on the media and dissent. RELEASE HIM: Pro-democracy demonstrators and local legislators hold photos of jailed journalist Ching Cheong as they rally outside the Chinese Liaison office in Hong Kong. The recent jailing...
China's bloggers—33.4 million strong at last count, and growing fast—can be an unforgiving bunch when something displeases them. In recent weeks a Western English teacher in Shanghai whose blog, Chinabounder, described his sexual conquests of Chinese women drew the venom of netizens and prompted a frenzy of nationalist outrage, including castration threats and calls by a Shanghai Academy of Social...
Foreign newspapers will not be allowed to print on the mainland, a senior official has said, stressing the issue was "complicated". Yu Yongzhan, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (Gapp), told the South China Morning Post that the administration had studied the possibility of allowing foreign newspapers to print on the mainland, but had decided against it at...
A Beijing court on Friday morning unexpectedly dismissed a state secrets charge against a researcher for the New York Times but sentenced him to three years in prison on a lesser, unrelated charge of fraud, the newspaper has reported. The verdict against researcher Zhao Yan, 44, spared him a prison sentence of 10 years or longer and also served as a blunt rebuke to the investigation by state...
Press freedom organisations have called for the release of Straits Times reporter Ching Cheong, who has being tried in a closed-door proceeding in Beijing. His trial on espionage charges began on August 15 and ended late that afternoon without an immediate verdict. "We have seen no evidence that Ching Cheong has committed a crime, and we call for his immediate release," Committee to Protect...
Legislation and a strong industry code of conduct are necessary to end the complicity of Western Internet companies in political censorship in China, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. China’s system of Internet censorship and surveillance, popularly known as the “Great Firewall,” is the most advanced in the world. In the 149-page report, “Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity...
The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention today of Hangzhou journalist Zan Aizong. Authorities placed Zan under a seven-day administrative detention this evening after warning him to stop writing about arrests and injuries involving Christians protesting the July 29 demolition of a church, according to the Independent Chinese PEN Center. “The government has launched a...
Richard Li, son of Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing, has bought a controlling stake in an esteemed Hong Kong newspaper, raising fears among journalists and lawmakers for its editorial independence. The Hong Kong Economic Journal, first published in 1973, is widely respected for its independent, critical and rational views and has a reputation as a paper of choice for the southern Chinese city's...
Amnesty International has accused Internet giants Yahoo, Microsoft and Google of violating human rights principles by cooperating with China's efforts to censor the Web and called on them to lobby for the release of jailed dissidents. The London-based human rights group also called on the Internet companies to oppose in public Chinese government requests that violate human rights standards. ALL...
