Asia

12 May 2006

Five journalists in China attacked while covering coal mine accident

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the physical attacks which five Chinese journalists sustained at the hands of mine employees and security guards on 7 and 8 May 2006 while trying to cover an accident in the Meihe coal mine in the northeastern province of Jilin. "As well as having to cope with government censorship, China's journalists are increasingly subject to physical...

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11 May 2006

After pledging press freedom for Olympics, China falls far short

New York, May 11, 2006 - With the 2008 Olympic Games just two years away, the Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned about the Chinese government's continuing crackdown on the media. China's policies of the past three years show a disturbing trend that seems certain to affect journalists reporting from Beijing in 2008. CPJ calls on the Chinese government and the International...

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1 May 2006

Chinese Internet activists challenge censorship

BEIJING (Reuters) - A coalition of Chinese Web activists has launched a petition decrying censorship of the Internet and challenging the legality of government information controls on China's more than 100 million net users. Hundreds of citizens signed the petition along with representatives of 13 local Chinese Web sites recently closed or targeted by censors. It began circulating on Saturday via...

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28 April 2006

Still no reaction from Yahoo! after fourth case of collaboration with police uncovered

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders called on Yahoo! to withdraw its Internet servers from China as a fourth case was revealed of the company's collaboration with Chinese police that led to the jailing of a cyber-dissident. Human Rights in China (HRIC) has said that the verdict in the case of Wang Xiaoning, 55, sentenced to ten years in prison in September 2003 for posting "subversive" articles...

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28 April 2006

Yahoo implicated in 4th Chinese writer's imprisonment

Yahoo’s Hong Kong subsidiary provided private information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of writer Wang Xiaoning on charges of incitement to subvert state power, a human rights group said. Wang was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in September 2003, due in part to writings distributed over the Internet. The case just recently came to light, according to Human Rights in China...

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23 April 2006

NYT: Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem)

For many young people in China, Kai-Fu Lee is a celebrity. Not quite on the level of a movie star like Edison Chen or the singers in the boy band F4, but for a 44-year-old computer scientist who invariably appears in a somber dark suit, he can really draw a crowd. When Lee, the new head of operations for Google in China, gave a lecture at one Chinese university about how young Chinese should...

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21 April 2006

Under Hu, China tightening media reins

SHANGHAI, China -- From Rolling Stone to online essayists to a scrappy Beijing newspaper, a wide range of media have felt the pressure of an official campaign to tighten controls on what Chinese see and read. Under President Hu Jintao, who was in the United States this week, the communist government is challenging a growing public appetite for information with a stepped-up campaign to block...

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21 April 2006

One year on, faint hope for reporter held in China

The year-long detention without trial of a Hong Kong reporter accused by China of spying for Taiwan is “not human”, activists pushing for his release said on Friday, but there was no clear end in sight. Ching Cheong, who worked for the Singapore Straits Times newspaper, was taken into custody in southern China a year ago on Saturday and formally arrested in August. His was one of a series of...

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19 April 2006

Renewed judicial proceedings against NYT researcher called “aberration”

The reopening of judicial proceedings against detained “New York Times” researcher Zhao Yan, whose release had been awaited since 17 March 2006, is an “aberration,” Reporters Without Borders has said, calling for him to be freed at once. Zhao’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said officials told him on 17 April that the proceedings had been reopened on 20 March 2006 on the basis of the same charges that were...

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19 April 2006

Yahoo! implicated in third cyber-dissident trial

Reporters Without Borders has obtained a copy of the verdict in the case of Jiang Lijun, sentenced to four years in prison in November 2003 for his online pro-democracy articles, showing that Yahoo! helped Chinese police to identify him. It is the third such case, following those of Shi Tao and Li Zhi, proving the implication of the American Internet company. The verdict, made available and...

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