Freedom of Expression

The people's governments and Communist Party central committees of Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces have each issued opinions informing universities in those jurisdictions that they must increase their supervision over campus Web sites and Internet forums, according to articles in the Southern Metropolitan Daily and the Yangtse Daily on September 29 and October 5, respectively. The opinions, which are both entitled "Implementation Opinion on Strengthening and Improving Ideological and Political Education of College Students" require universities to adopt a "real name" registration system for Internet forums (also known as "electronic bulletin boards" or "BBSs"). The Guangdong opinion also requires schools to establish an "IP address database and IP address allocation classification responsibility mechanism."

Communist Party and government control over, and censorship of, China's news media prevents journalists from writing and publishing critical investigative reports, according to an article by Professor Zheng Baowei in the October edition of Journalist Monthly [Xinwen Jizhe]. The monthly journal is a joint publication of the Shanghai Communist Party Central Committee and Academy of Social Sciences. Zheng, director of the People's University's News and Social Development Research Center (Center), writes that journalists and editors in China face "many layers of obstruction, heavy pressures, and too much interference" when trying to prepare and publish critical articles on important issues (sometimes referred to as "public opinion supervision" reports).

Local officials again beat blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng near his home in Shuanghou township, Shandong province, on October 24, according to a report the same day on Radio Free Asia. Since September 6, officials have held Chen under house arrest for publicizing abuses by local population planning officials.

Chen attempted to leave his home to greet two friends whom security officers guarding the house had prevented from visiting him. Eight or nine men, including two officials, then began beating and kicking Chen, according to the RFA account. Family members brought him back inside the house, but officials subsequently denied the family’s request to send him to the hospital. Local officials also beat Chen on October 4.

Anhui provincial authorities have expanded an experimental merger of Communist Party and government township level posts to 17 counties throughout the province, according to an October 19 article in the 21st Century Business Herald. The experiment began in late 2004 in Xuancheng city. The reforms require the township Party secretary to serve concurrently as the head of the township government. Individual township reforms require lower level Party officials to hold other government positions. For example, one township's rules require deputy township Party secretaries to head both the local people's congress (LPC) and the discipline committee.

More than 10 traffic police officers stormed a Communist Party newspaper office in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, and beat and detained Wu Xianghu, a deputy editor at the Taizhou Evening News, after a scuffle between Wu and a senior police officer over the paper's recent report about unreasonable traffic license charges, according to an October 22 South China Morning Post (SCMP) report (subscription required). A newspaper employee confirmed to the SCMP that the beating required Wu to be hospitalized for "severe injuries."

Reporters Without Borders ranked China 159th out of 167 countries in its 2005 Worldwide Press Freedom Index, released on October 20. China ranked ahead of Nepal, Cuba, Libya, Burma, Iran, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, and North Korea in granting press freedom, according to the Index. The authors note that, despite some media privatization in China, "the government's propaganda department monitors the media, which were forbidden to mention dozens of sensitive subjects in the past year."

The High People's Court in Bengbu, Anhui province, rejected writer Zhang Lin's appeal of his conviction for subversion of state power, according to an October 15 report on the Boxun Web site. Zhang's wife told Boxun that officials at the Intermediate Court gave her the High Court's opinion on October 14, which stated simply: "Appeal rejected, original judgment upheld. This ruling is the final ruling."

The Ministry of Information Industry (MII) will "carry out strict screening of information contents on cellular phones, pagers, and fixed line phones" during October, to "address the increased spread of pornography, superstition, and other unhealthy content," according to an October 7 Beijing News article posted on the Beijing News Web site. The article said that the screening would be done pursuant to the Notice Regarding Further Strengthening Control Over the Dissemination of Harmful Information Over Mobile Telecommunication Networks (Notice), which the MII also issued the same day.