More Charter 08 Casualties: Bullog Purged, Ran Yunfei Suspended
C.A. Yeung writes in the Under the Jacaranda Tree blog:
Bullog 牛博网, a progressive blog portal, becomes the next victim of a purge that has swept across the blogosphere in China since the release of Charter 08. As a result, Bullog lost two of its most popular bloggers: Ran Yunfei 冉云飞 and Baozuitun 饱醉豚 (literally translated as the Gluttonous Suckling Pig). It is believed that both bloggers were suspended for publishing articles about the Charter. Ran Yunfei is also among the first group of 303 signatories.
It is regrettable how Luo Yonghao 罗永浩, the owner of Bullog, once considered a very “bull” (Chinese Internet jargon for “cool”) blogger himself, had to succumb to pressure from the CCP censors in order to protect his site from closure. Luo exercises self-censorship for very good reasons, of course, particularly when Bullog is the home of some best names in the Chinese language blogosphere – Chai Jing 柴静, Han Han 韩寒, Lian Yue 连岳, Wang Xiaoshan 王小山, Zhao Mu 赵牧 – just to name a few. This is not the first time Bullog is at the mercy of the butcher. In October 2007, Bullog was temporarily suspended. Permission to reopen was eventually granted after Luo had agreed to be vigilant about the content of his site.
For Ran Yunfei, this is the second time this year his blog has been forced to close down. Earlier in February, Ran’s blog at Tianya 天涯社区 was “harmonized” (被和谐了) as well.
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