Freedom of Expression
The Xinxiang City Reeducation Through Labor Committee in Henan province on November 15, 2010, ordered rights defender Cheng Jianping (who uses the pen name Wang Yi) to serve one year of reeducation through labor, according to a November 15 Chinese Human Rights Defenders article (in Chinese, via Boxun). Authorities alleged that Cheng "disturbed social order" when on October 17 she re-posted or re-tweeted a Twitter (microblog) message from her fiancé. The message concerned anti-Japanese protests following a fishing incident between China and Japan related to an island territorial dispute.
On August 19, 2010, public security officers from Beijing and Weinan municipality, Shaanxi province, detained Xie Chaoping, an author and journalist with Circumference, a magazine under the Procuratorate Daily according to a September 10 Beijing News article reprinted in Phoenix Net and a September 13 Democracy and Law Times article reprinted in Phoenix Net. Xie's wife said the PSB officials told her they suspected Xie of engaging in "illegal business activities," a crime under Article 225 of China's Criminal Law.
Congressional-Executive Commission on China | www.cecc.gov
Statement of CECC Chairman Byron Dorgan and Cochairman Sander Levin Congratulating Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo
December 10, 2010
On October 25, 2010, Xinhua News Agency issued a news article (in Chinese) aiming to rebut foreign media criticism of the imprisonment of prominent Chinese intellectual and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo. Liu is a writer and democracy advocate who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December 2009 for "inciting subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law.
Transcript (PDF) (Text)
Last month, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese writer and democracy advocate, Liu Xiaobo, recognizing his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." Liu currently is serving an eleven-year sentence in a Chinese prison for "inciting subversion of state power," in part for his role
Incidents in July and August 2010 involving harassment of journalists by local police and by local companies have sparked numerous news articles, editorials, and op-eds in the Chinese media. The case that received perhaps the most media attention, the Qiu Ziming case, is discussed below.
The following is a translation prepared by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China of a Xinhua news article that appeared on the Xinhua Web site on October 25, 2010. The Chinese text was retrieved from the Xinhua Web site on October 25, 2010.
So-Called "Punishment Because of Speech" Is a Misreading of the Judgment in the Liu Xiaobo Case
--A Criminal Law Expert Talks About the Liu Xiaobo Case and Freedom of Speech
Transcript (PDF) (Text)
At this Roundtable on the release of the Commission's 2010 Annual Report, research specialists on the Commission staff provided an overview of major trends and developments in human rights and the rule of law in China over the past year, with a particular focus on freedom of expression and the Internet, and developments in Tibet, and Xinjiang.
The Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department reportedly has sent an order, effective July 1, 2010, to numerous "metropolitan" (dushi) newspapers barring them from publishing "negative" stories about incidents in other geographic areas within China or carrying stories published by newspapers based in other areas, according to a July 15 report in the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao (via Yahoo! Hong Kong). In contrast to traditional media more closely aligned with the Party and government, "metropolitan" newspapers are more commercially oriented and are known for their investigative reports and entertainment stories.