Freedom of Expression
Reports have recently come to light regarding two incidents in which Chinese government officials imprisoned three Chinese citizens for publishing without a license. The first case was reported on May 12 on the Web site of the National Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force (in Chinese), and stated that in 2005 Gansu provincial justice agencies made "ample" use of the law as a weapon to punish illegal publishing activities. The report said that in Gansu's first case of illegal newspaper publishing, in May 2005 the Chengguan District People's Court in Lanzhou sentenced Liu Xiaopeng and Shi Xiaojun to five years in prison and 10,000 yuan in fines for illegal operation of a business for publishing and selling magazines without government authorization.
Authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) launched a month-long campaign on May 17 aimed at rooting out "political and religious illegal publications," according to a June 3 article from Tianshan Net. Officials began the campaign to create a "good cultural environment" for a national book fair held in Urumqi, the XUAR capital, and as part of the region's 2006 Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications campaign. A May 18 Xinjiang Daily article (via Tianshan Net) on the campaign noted a large number of illegal political and religious publications in the XUAR, including political publications that "propagate holy war and propagate terrorism."
The National Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force (Task Force), which coordinates government efforts to combat illegal publishing in China, convened a meeting on April 27 in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, according to an April 29 Xinhua report (in Chinese).
Law enforcement and customs officials in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone raided three rented rooms and took five people into custody for storing and selling 120,900 "illegal foreign books" on May 30, according to a June 7 Southern Metropolitan Daily report (in Chinese). The report did not say why the government considered the books illegal, but Article 41 of the Regulation on the Administration of Publishing prohibits people from engaging in "publication importation services" without government authorization.
Authorities in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region closed down an ethnic Mongol bulletin board service (BBS) in April after the BBS posted messages from "overseas separatists," while a Web hosting company shut down another site in Inner Mongolia the same month after it permitted online chatting in the Mongolian language, according to a May 11 report from the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC). The events follow the closing of two Inner Mongolian Web sites in September 2005 for allegedly posting separatist materials.
Several groups have petitioned the Legislative Review and Filing Office (LRFO) of the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) to consider the constitutionality and legality of a rule that the Chinese government used to shut down their Web sites, according to a copy of the petition posted on the Signature Net Web site on March 28 (in Chinese. A translation is available here). The petition campaign closed on April 28, and was organized by "Constitutional Review Application Delegations" from the following Web sites:
The Communist Youth League Central Propaganda Department issued a Decision Regarding the Handling of the China Youth Daily Freezing Point Weekly Mistake in Publishing "Modernism and History Textbooks" on January 24, that ordered the China Youth Daily (a Communist Youth League publication) to suspend publication of its Freezing Point weekly beginning January 25.
The General Administration of Press and Publication introduced new restrictions on foreign magazines seeking to publish Chinese language editions, according to an April 7 Reuters report. The report cited an unnamed GAPP official saying that an internal rule introduced in 2005 limits approvals to science and technology publications. Sports, entertainment, and fashion magazines cannot expect approval to enter China's media market.
The following is a translation by CECC staff of the Provisions on the Administration of Internet News Information Services, promulgated by the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Information Industry on September 25, 2005. The Chinese text was retrieved from the Xinhua Web site on June 6, 2006.
Chinese authorities have set a preliminary date of June 8 to try Zhao Yan, a researcher at the New York Times Beijing bureau, according to a May 27 Reuters article. Authorities originally detained Zhao in 2004 for disclosing state secrets, a charge that both Zhao and the New York Times have denied. They subsequently charged him with both fraud and revealing state secrets in 2005.
Authorities have used provisions in Chinese law to hold Zhao Yan since September 2004 without trial:
Deadline for Law Enforcement to Complete Its Investigation