State Control

LI DATONG, the sacked editor of one of China's most influential investigative newspapers, laughed as he explained why the closure and pending reopening of the weekly Bingdian ( Freezing Point) added up to an incredible victory, despite his dismissal. While the fight was not over yet, he sensed a watershed. "This is a rare occurrence," he said. "It (the reopening of an axed newspaper) has never...

BEIJING – At 5 p.m. on Jan. 24, Li Datong's status went into a deep chill. Mr. Li, a Tiananmen protest veteran and a rare crusading editor still allowed to work, learned that "Freezing Point," his weekly magazine, had been closed. The proximate reason: a lengthy article smashing official history of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, when a peasant cult killed more than 230 foreigners in a spasm of...

China has finally freed a journalist after 16 years of imprisonment left him mentally impaired after being tortured and held for long periods in solitary confinement. Yu Dongyue, then 23, was jailed for splattering paint on a portrait of Mao Zedong during the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. MAO@TIANANMEN: The portrait of Mao Zedong looms over student protestors at Tiananmen Square...

SHANGHAI, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- China's largest city, Shanghai, will hold the media accountable for carrying misleading commercials in its latest move to crack down on fraudulent advertisements, a government spokesperson said. Advertisers as well as publishers of fraudulent ads will face more severe penalties in the city's forthcoming campaign to better regulate the market and improve the overall...

NEW YORK, 23 February 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The report is considered groundbreaking in its precise and detailed description of the instruments of censorship in a rapidly changing Chinese society. It shows how a system of control that originated under classic totalitarian conditions is being adjusted, refined, and modernized to meet the agenda of the current Chinese leadership -- market economy with...

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...

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...