Chinese Stranglehold

Beijing - Police on Thursday detained a German journalist who was attempting to investigate controversial plans to dam the Nujiang river in south-western China's Yunnan province. Georg Blume, a correspondent for Die Zeit newspaper, said he was taken away by police for 'illegal reporting' on Thursday afternoon while he was speaking to villagers about plans to resettle them to make way for one...

BEIJING: A Chinese draft law that threatens to fine news media for reporting on "sudden incidents" without permission applies to foreign as well as domestic news organizations, an official involved in preparing the legislation said Monday. The law, now under consideration by the legislature, calls for fines of up to $12,500 if news media produce unauthorized reports on outbreaks of disease...

BEIJING -- A new attempt to clamp down on China's media has provoked an outcry from Chinese journalists and parliament members, sparking a controversy that could kill the proposal. The unusual rebellion by Chinese news media and politicians was triggered by a draft law that would impose fines up to $12,500 (U.S.) on media outlets that publish unauthorized reports on emergencies, including natural...

BEIJING, June 26 — Chinese media outlets will be fined if they report on "sudden events" without prior authorization from government officials, under a draft law being considered by the Communist Party-controlled legislature. The law would give government officials a powerful new tool to restrict coverage of mass outbreaks of disease, riots, strikes, accidents and other events that the authorities...

A Chinese journalist found guilty of extortion after writing articles about official corruption was sentenced Thursday to one year in prison, his wife and lawyer said. Yang Xiaoqing, a reporter for the state-run China Industrial Economy News, was sentenced at the Longhui No. 1 People’s Court in Hunan province, his lawyer, Zhang Xingshui said. Yang’s wife, Gong Jie, said she would appeal the...

Google has admitted for the first time that it compromised its principles when it entered the Chinese market and agreed to toe Beijing’s strict line on censorship. Speaking in Washington, Sergey Brin, Google’s billionaire co-founder, said the company, which operates under the motto "do no evil", had adopted "a set of rules that we weren’t comfortable with". In a hint that Google could adjust its...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the current unprecedented level of Internet filtering in China, which means the Google.com search engine can no longer be accessed in most provinces - although the censored Chinese version, Google.cn, is still accessible - and software designed in the United States to get round censorship now only works with great difficulty. The organisation...

The Board of the World Association of Newspapers has called for the release of all journalists jailed in China and condemned "the ongoing repression of all forms of freedom of expression in China." "More than 30 journalists remain behind bars in China. The vast majority of them have faced long periods of detention before even being charged. Most trials result in lengthy prison sentences, often...

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the release, on health grounds, of cyber-dissident and human rights activist Guo Qizhen, who was arrested at his home on 12 May 2006 and whose health, according to his lawyer, is worrying. The press freedom organisation also condemns the harassment of two other cyber-dissidents, Liu Shui and Xiong Zhongjun, who were forced by the police to leave the city...

SHANGHAI: It began with an impassioned, 5,000-word letter on one of China's most popular Internet bulletin boards, from a husband denouncing a student he suspected of carrying on an affair with his wife. Immediately, hundreds joined in the attack. "Let's use our keyboard and mouse in our hands as weapons," as one person wrote, "to chop out the heads of these adulterers, to pay for the sacrifice of...