Freedom of Expression

Urumqi Court Sentences Journalist Gheyret Niyaz

Following 10 months of restricted Internet access in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) after demonstrations and rioting in the region in July 2009, authorities announced in May that they had fully restored Internet access in the region. (See a May 14 announcement on the restoration of Internet service via Tianshan Net.) As reported in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2009 Annual Report, the Communist Party Secretary of Urumqi, where the demonstrations and rioting occurred, had announced on July 7, 2009, that authorities cut Internet access in the city to "quench the riot quickly and prevent violence from spreading to other places." Authorities also instituted Internet restrictions across the region and imposed curbs on text messaging and international phone calls.

In mid-July 2010, a government-linked crackdown on the use of microblogs and blogs on the Internet in China reportedly began. Blogs are personalized Web pages on which users provide running commentary on all kinds of topics. Microblogs (weibo) allow users to post messages containing up to about 140 characters at a time and to follow the postings of other users (see the Chinese search engine Baidu's definition here), much like Twitter elsewhere. (Twitter is blocked in China, although some citizens obtain access through circumvention tools.) According to mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, and foreign media, recent actions taken against microblogs and blogs in China include:

The State Council Information Office released a white paper on the Chinese government's policies toward the Internet on June 8, 2010, aiming to present "the true situation of the development and regulation of the Internet in China" to Chinese citizens and the international community. The White Paper on the State of the Internet in China (Chinese, English via China Daily) claims that the government "guarantees citizens' freedom of speech on the Internet." It also claims that the government's model for regulating the Internet is "consistent with international practices."

Note that the English translation of the white paper published in the state-run China Daily appears not to follow the original Chinese text exactly. For this reason, the CECC has based the analysis below on its own English translation of the white paper.

Weeks after reportedly "resurfacing" in late March 2010, prominent Chinese human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng disappeared again in mid-April, according to an April 30 New York Times (NYT) article and a May 1 Voice of America article. In early April, Gao gave several interviews to foreign reporters, claiming he had been "released" months earlier and had ended his human rights campaigning in hope of being reunited with his family. The extent of the restrictions imposed on Gao's freedom of movement and association after this reported "release" remain unclear. Gao provided few details of his circumstances or of his 14-month disappearance, according to a March 28 BBC News article.