Statue of Lei Feng at the Masanjia Women’s Labor Re-education Camp.
The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.
Central Propaganda Department: Without exception, do not reuse, report, or comment on the article about the Masanjia Women’s Labor Re-education Camp and related contents. (April 9, 2013)
中宣部：对马三家女子劳教所的报道及相关内容，一律不转不报不评。
The mainland magazine Lens published an exposé on torture in the camp, located near the northeastern city of Shenyang. Many of the abuses which previous camp personnel and current and former inmates described match those alleged by Falun Gong practitioners years before. The central government has recently made waves about ending the system of re-education through labor (laojiao), under which many citizens are imprisoned without trial, often for simply speaking their mind.
Read the report on CDT Chinese [zh].
Correction: This post originally stated that the full Lens report was available online. The version of the report published on CDT Chinese, like most circulating online, is missing the section “Lawsuit” (诉讼). The full print version is available for purchase from Lens. Thank you to Joshua Rosenzweig for the tip.
Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
