Chinese Stranglehold

The trial of a Chinese researcher charged with exposing state secrets while working for the New York Times is expected before the end of March, his lawyer said on Wednesday. Zhao Yan worked for the paper before his arrest in September 2004. He faces 10 years in jail or more after security officials charged him with telling the paper details of rivalry between China’s outgoing Communist Party...

After branding Internet companies Google and Yahoo as tools of China's communist government, the US Congress passed a new bill today prohibiting US businesses from aiding Internet-restricting countries in the censorship of online content. The "Global Online Freedom Act of 2006", introduced in the House of Representatives by Republican Representative Chris Smith, who chairs a House subcommittee on...

BEIJING – Authorities on Thursday removed the top editors of an investigative weekly that had tested the limits of censorship, banished them to a think tank and announced that the publication would be relaunched in a more compliant format next month. Action against Freezing Point and its editor, Li Datong, comes as overseas observers focus on whether Internet and technology firms such as Google...

BEIJING (Reuters) - The editors of a bold Chinese weekly purged by censors issued an impassioned call for free speech on Friday, but propaganda officials fought back by accusing them of insulting the country's ardent patriotism. Propaganda officials said on Thursday that Freezing Point, a weekly section of the China Youth Daily that specialised in exposing official corruption and misrule, could...

BEIJING - China on Thursday defended its right to police the Internet, one day after four American technology giants appeared before Congress on charges that they collaborated with Beijing to crush free speech online in return for market access. "It is normal for countries to manage the Internet in accordance with law and to guide its development in a healthy and orderly fashion," Chinese Foreign...

The giants of the Internet have been hauled up and accused of colluding with China's secret police and censors to wield a "cyber sledgehammer of repression". At a hearing of the US House international relations subcommittee, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Google were repeatedly accused of collusion with an oppressive regime, and of selling out the principles of democracy and free speech for...

China has decided to allow the re-opening of an investigative newspaper shut down last month, its editor has said. The Bingdian (Freezing Point) will hit news stands on 1 March, Li Datong said. But he said Communist Party officials in charge of the weekly would not allow him and his deputy to work there. The news comes two days after prominent Communist Party elders issued a rare open letter to...

Google’s decision to abide by Chinese censors in the launch of its new google.cn search service is a blow against democratic rights and free speech that sets a dangerous precedent both in China and internationally. Though certainly not the first such move–Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s MSN service have both stated that they abide by Chinese government censorship policies, banning such words as "freedom"...

A Chinese newspaper editor has died from injuries months after traffic police beat him up for an expose about exorbitant electric bicycle licence fees, Reuters has reported. Wu Xianghu, deputy editor of Taizhou Wanbao, died on Thursday last after receiving serious injuries in October 2005 when traffic police in the eastern coastal city of Taizhou, Zhejiang province, attacked him for an expose that...

The US Congress has condemned major IT firms for helping China censor the internet. In China, web forums are carrying angry comments. Members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus said that Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Yahoo were putting profits before the principle of free speech. "With all their power and influence, wealth and high visibility, they neglected to commit to the kind of positive...