Freedom of Expression

Communist Party propaganda officials reportedly issued a notice banning media from outside Qinghai province from covering a large earthquake that struck the region on April 14, 2010, according to an April 15 South China Morning Post (SCMP) article (subscription required). SCMP said the notice came from the Party's "publicity department," an apparent reference to the Central Propaganda Department. The notice reportedly told newspaper editors to recall journalists sent to the area, citing reasons of safety. SCMP reported that many Chinese media appeared to be ignoring the ban.

Li Changchun Outlines Main Earthquake Themes

The Deputy Director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said on March 10, 2010, that the government will introduce a qualification exam this year which prospective Chinese journalists must pass in order to apply for a job, according to a March 11 South China Morning Post (SCMP) article (subscription required). The director, Li Dongdong, said that the exam will include an ideological requirement. "No matter what your field of study, if you are not taught about the history of Chinese Communist Party journalism, the Marxist view of news and media ethics, you cannot pass the tests," Li is quoted as saying in the SCMP article. In a March 8 interview with Xinhua, Li also made the following statement:

The hukou (household registration) system imposes strict limits on Chinese citizens' ability to choose their permanent places of residence (see the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's topic paper on the hukou system). Given that social services are linked to hukou registrations, migrant workers who do not hold urban hukou registrations are more likely than than those who do to face discrimination when they attempt to access healthcare and education or find housing in China's cities―see previous CECC analysis on the barriers to education that migrants face.

On February 9, 2010, the Chengdu Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province sentenced writer and environmental activist Tan Zuoren to five years in prison, and the day before upheld the three-year sentence of fellow activist Huang Qi, according to a February 8 Chinese Human Rights Defenders article and a February 9 Associated Press article (via New York Times). Both had criticized the government for not doing enough to investigate the causes of school collapses in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake or to address the demands of grieving parents.

The Beijing High People's Court announced on February 11, 2010, its decision to uphold the 11-year sentence of prominent writer Liu Xiaobo for "inciting subversion of state power," according to a February 11 Human Rights in China (HRIC) report.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) People's Congress Standing Committee passed the XUAR Ethnic Unity Education Regulation on December 29, 2009, effective February 1, 2010, that promulgates Communist Party policy on ethnic issues and imposes tight controls on freedom of expression, with implications in areas such as academic freedom, educational curricula, and commercial decisions. The regulation follows unrest in July 2009 that underscored deep tensions in the XUAR and rifts between Han and Uyghur communities. While the regulation includes such stated aims as promoting equality, taken as a whole, the regulation represents a far-reaching and intrusive tool for imposing Party policy on XUAR residents, placing them at risk of violating vaguely worded prohibitions that restrict free speech.

On December 18, 2009, the Communist Party and central government public security leadership in Beijing held a video teleconference with members of the Party's political-legal committees, which among other things, oversee the law enforcement apparatus at the local level across the nation, according to a December 28 Legal Daily report (reprinted in Xinhua). The meeting focused on propagating the Party's public security agenda for 2010, summarized as "three key projects," an agenda which also was disseminated by the state-run media.