State Control

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...

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...

(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...

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...

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...

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...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China defended its latest rules controlling foreign access to domestic media and television on Tuesday, saying the government was simply protecting intellectual property rights but was still committed to an open market. Senior officials also said Chinese people preferred reading foreign magazines on science and technology -- which are permitted by the government -- and that...

(RSF/IFEX) - A Reporters Without Borders team stationed itself with a video player outside Yahoo!'s California headquarters on 7 April 2006 and stopped employees as they left the building, offering to show them videos filmed in China of people criticising Yahoo!'s cooperation with the Chinese police. The videos, which can be downloaded from the Reporters Without Borders website ( http://www.rsf...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has called on World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states to oppose a series of restrictive measures just adopted by the Chinese government which are a complete violation of WTO principles and will jeopardise the liberalisation and development of the Chinese media. China joined the WTO in 2001. "The credibility of China's integration into the WTO requires a...

BEIJING, China (UPI) -- Eleven of China`s major news Web sites endorsed a self-censorship proposal Wednesday to block pornographic and violent Internet content. Such sites as Xinhuanet.com, People.com.cn, China.com.cn, Chinadaily.com.cn, and Chinanews.com issued a joint statement saying they would participate in compliance with the 'Eight Honors and Disgraces,' a new concept of socialist morality...