Freedom of Expression

An article in the August 18 edition of Guangdong's Southern Weekend offers the following perspective on how the Chinese government administers the Internet:

According to several sources, Chinese authorities have launched a crackdown on human rights activists in Beijing during the visit of Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to China from August 29 to September 2. On August 29, Chinese police raided the office of the Empowerment and Rights Institute, a legal and human rights advisory group in Beijing, shortly before Ms. Arbour's arrival, according to an August 30 New York Times article. The article cited employees of the Institute as saying that police searched the Institute's offices and copied computer files. The group's director, Hou Wenzhuo, said that the police had come to her home as well, but had not arrested her.

Jiang Xiaoyu, Vice Chairman of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee, said that the Committee will not accept interviews with international news media by telephone because the reporters might represent the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to an August 8 report in The Australian. The report quoted Jiang as saying, "The problem with telephone interviews is that we can't identify the person on the line, which media he represents, and whether he is a journalist or not . . . . For example the Falun Gong cult is illegal in China but they have their own journalists."

Five government agencies and the Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department (CPD) have issued a joint order increasing restrictions on the import of foreign "cultural products," according to an August 2 Xinhua report. The order is entitled the "Measures on Increasing the Administration of the Importation of Cultural Products" and was issued by the Ministry of Culture (MOC), State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), Office of Customs (Customs), and the CPD. The order clarifies the responsibilities of these agencies with respect to importation and domestic distribution of foreign movies, television shows, and other "cultural products":

A court in Anhui province has sentenced writer Zhang Lin to five years imprisonment and four years of deprivation of political rights for inciting subversion, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on August 2. According to CPJ, on August 2 authorities notified Zhang Lin's family and his lawyer, Mo Shaoping, that on July 28 the Intermediate People's Court of Bengbu ruled that Zhang was guilty of crimes related to articles he has posted on the Internet, and to a radio interview. Reporters Without Borders said that the court convicted Zhang for posting reports and essays on the Internet that were "contrary to the bases of the Constitution" and "jeopardized national unity and territorial sovereignty, spread lies, and disturbed public order and social stability." The sentence was imposed under article 105 of the Criminal Law, a provision on subversion.

Internet companies in Shenzhen should have finished "purifying and rectifying" all Internet chatrooms, bulletin board systems, news groups, and instant messaging systems ("forums") that they operate by August 25, under the terms of a Notice issued by the Shenzhen public security office on July 5. The Notice requires companies to shut down forums suspected of having "unauthorized mass organization activities." It also requires the closure of forums having a name, summary, or postings containing illegal information or information "not in harmony with the requirements of establishing a civilization with a socialist spirit." Forums that have failed to carry out "real name" registration should also be shuttered, according to the Notice.

In a July 26 directive, the Nanjing municipal Communist Party Propaganda Department prohibited the publication of certain types of articles unless the writer or editor has given the article's subject the opportunity to first "review the article," "check the facts," and "give their opinion," according to reports on the Nanjing Daily and People's Daily Web sites. Entitled "Interim Measures on the Examination and Verification of News Unit Public Opinion Supervision Articles," the directive mandates that when journalists submit a critical investigative report to an editor, they must also submit a copy of the draft that has been signed by the subject of the article. Editors must reject any article not accompanied by a signed draft, unless the journalist can provide "objective reasons" in writing explaining why he or she was unable to obtain the subject's signature.

On August 11 and 12, Chinese authorities convened a forum in Shanghai to discuss the results of the recently-concluded nationwide crackdown on private Web site operators, according to an August 16 report in the Ministry of Information Industry's (MII) People's Post and Telecommunications News. The report stated that over 95 percent of Internet content provider Web sites and 89 percent of IP addresses had registered with the MII. According to the report, the crackdown began in September 2004, with Tianjin acting as a test case, and concluded at the end of July 2005, with the registration of 6,641,000 out of 6,693,000 independent domestic domain names.