Chinese Stranglehold

A Belgian TV journalist and his crew were assaulted while reporting on AIDS in Central China, Reuters has reported. After interviewing several representatives of AIDS groups on Thursday, Belgian journalist Tom Van de Weghe and his production team from Flemish public television VRT were beaten and robbed of cash and equipment by 12 men recruited by authorities in Henan province, a VRT spokesperson...

A court in China's southwestern Sichuan province sentenced Chen Daojun, a writer critical of the government, to three years in prison on charges of inciting subversion of state power. His wife Zeng Qirong told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that she was present in the courtroom in the provincial capital, Chengdu, when her husband was sentenced after 30-minute trial...

China has agreed to relax controls on financial news providers in an out-of-court settlement of a dispute with the United States, the European Union and Canada. The deal ends Chinese state news agency Xinhua's role as a regulator and the requirement for foreign suppliers of financial information to act through an agent, and provides protection for confidential business information. Calling it a...

The Chinese government is still demonstrating lack of goodwill towards foreign journalists trying to visit Tibet. Its repression of Tibetans who dare to talk about what has happened to them has remained unabated. A Tibetan monk, for example, was arrested three days ago after speaking openly in a video and answering a foreign journalist's questions about the torture he underwent in prison. "The

The Committee to Protect Journalists' website, www.cpj.org, is blocked in the Main Press Centre and at least one other Olympic press venue, according to a number of foreign journalists there. CPJ is calling on the Chinese authorities to provide the free Internet access they promised foreign reporters when they were awarded the Games. “We call on China and the International Olympic Committee to...

Reporters covering the aftermath of Monday's attack on a border police outpost in Kashgar have been detained, beaten, and harassed, according to international news reports. Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported Wednesday that police in Kashgar dragged Masami Kawakita, a photographer from the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper's Tokyo headquarters, and Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Nippon Television Network...

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 (CPJ) said Tuesday. Twenty-six Chinese journalists remain in prison and heavy government censorship remains in place despite Beijing's broad assurances—made in its 2001 bid to host the event...

A reporter for Hong Kong's Apple Daily newspaper was denied entry into Beijing this week, the paper's chief editor said on Thursday, according to a Reuters report. With just over a month to go before the start of the Beijing Olympics, the newspaper, known for its pro-democracy stance and critical Chinese reportage, said one of its senior reporters had been turned away at Beijing on July 1 and had...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned a June 26 decision by a Nanjing court sentencing Chinese journalist Sun Lin to four years' imprisonment for "disturbing the social order" and "concealing a weapon". Sun, who writes for US-based website Boxun News under the pen name Jie Mu, and his wife He Fang were arrested on May 30, 2007, after reporting on civil rights violations...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned 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 (AP). In his trial, Sun and his lawyers argued that the charges...