Freedom of Expression
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
The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) issued Interim Measures on the Administration of the Recording and Notification of Television Program Film Production on April 6. According to the circular under which the Interim Measures were issued, the Interim Measures abolish the requirement that television program producers obtain government approval for planned television dramas, and allow them instead to register the production with the government either before or after production is completed.
In November 2004, an official with the General Administration of Press and Publication delivered a report outlining the policy goals and administrative methods of the Chinese government's censorship of foreign and domestic news media. Presented at the 2004 National Book Publishing Administration Work Meeting, the report provides insight into how an official at the GAPP views the role of media censorship. The report addressed the following issues:
The General Administration of Press and Publication has shut down at least three newspapers so far this year, according to an April 13 Xinhua report (English/Chinese):
- China Art Circle, in Baoding, Hebei province;
- China News, in Jianhu, Jiangsu province; and
- China Business, in Heilongjiang province.
Chinese authorities banned 79 newspapers and periodicals in 2005.
The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) published an article (in Chinese) on January 4 entitled "Looking Back on 2005: Focusing on Ten Bright Spots on the Press Battle Lines." Three of these "bright spots" were:
Number 10: Indoctrinating journalists "in order to promote harmony."
The GAPP report praised the expansion of the "Three Studies Education" campaign (the study of Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents," the study of the Marxist approach to the press, and the study of professional ethics). According to the report, in 2005 the government carried out on-the-job training of Communist Party officials holding leadership positions at news publishers and "deeply and meticulously performed worker and staff ideological and political work" in order to "safeguard stability and unity."
Fourteen major Internet portals, including Sina.com, Sohu.com, Baidu.com, and Yahoo's Chinese Web site, issued a joint proposal on April 9 calling for China's Internet industry to censor indecent and harmful information, spread the ideas of President Hu Jintao, encourage "passionate love of the motherland," and voluntarily accept supervision, according to a Xinhua article (in Chinese) published on the front page of the April 10 edition of the People's Daily.
Liu Binjie, a deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said that China plans to ratify World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet treaties in the second half of 2006, according to an April 11 report from the China News Agency (in Chinese, via Xinhua). Liu said that the National Copyright Administration planned to submit a draft report on the legal feasibility of China's accession to international treaties to the State Council for approval in April. If the plan is approved, the State Council would submit a WIPO Internet treaty accession proposal to the National People's Congress.
The Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force held a teleconference in January 2006 and notified "relevant agencies" that they should "purify the publishing market" and be on duty 24 hours a day during the annual plenary sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which concluded on March 13, according to a January 19 Chinese Readers' Digest article (in Chinese) on the Guangming Daily Web site.
The Bijie People's Procuratorate in Guizhou province charged Li Yuanlong, a journalist with the Bijie Daily, on February 9, 2006, with inciting subversion of state power in connection with his using software to circumvent China's Internet censorship and e-mailing essays to the operators of foreign Web sites that the Chinese government blocks, according to a copy of the indictment posted on the Boxun Web site on March 1. According to a February 27 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) press release, Li reported on rural poverty, and had been censored in recent years because of complaints by local officials embarrassed by his reports. CPJ reported that Chinese authorities have prevented his family from visiting him since his detention, but a local lawyer has seen him twice.
Chinese authorities in Chongqing have released Internet essayist Luo Changfu from prison following completion of his three-year sentence for inciting subversion of state power, according to a March 16 Boxun article. State security officials detained Luo on March 13, 2003, after he published essays on the Internet calling for the release of Liu Di, the Boxun Web site reported on November 14, 2003. Luo was tried in July 2003 by the Chongqing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, which sentenced him to three years in prison and one year deprivation of political rights on November 16, 2003.