Chen Guangfu, 56, said two young men punched and chased him as he was heading home to his village of Dongshigu in the eastern province of Shandong.

The men, who appeared well-dressed and in their 20s, jumped out of a black car and hit him repeatedly on the head, he said. He said he was not seriously injured in the beating that lasted several minutes.

“I started shouting and running away from them at the same time,” Chen told Reuters by telephone, about 10 minutes after the incident happened.

“This is a continuation of what has been happening to me since April 18,” Chen said, adding that he believed the men were government-hired thugs. “My feeling is that they didn’t appear to be farmers.”

[Source]

While Cheng Guangcheng fled illegal house arrest a year ago and was ultimately allowed to travel to the United States to study after seeking protection in its Beijing embassay, a shadow has hung over his former village in Shandong province. His nephew, Chen Kegui, Chen Guangfu’s son, was sentenced to 39 months in jail for “intentional infliction of injury” after he allegedly attacked men who had broken into his house to search for Chen Guangcheng following his escape. Chen Kegui now reportedly has appendicitis and has not received adequate medical treatment.

Chen Guangcheng told a U.S. congressional subcommittee last month that China had violated the deal that enabled him to leave the country last year, citing the continued persecution of his family back home. Chen Guangfu said the attacks on his family smacked of retaliation for his brother’s comments, according to the South China Morning Post:

He said the men appeared to be government-hired thugs as their actions were swift and “very professional”.

As he was talking to the Post by phone, the black car returned and loitered around him, he said while standing by the motorway.

“I don’t know whether they are trying to end my life,” he said, sounding terrified.

[Source]

New U.S. secretary of state John Kerry said last week that he planned to raise the case of Chen Kegui with senior Chinese officials, though the State Department said that Kerry called but could not reach the Chinese Foreign Minister.

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“We are very worried. Medical experts say the appendix could easily burst. There is a risk to his life,” Chen said, adding: “The prison hospital is unable to deal with the kind of illness Chen Kegui has.”

Prison officials said they would make their own arrangements for treating Chen Kegui, he said, adding that he had been permitted to visit his son in prison several times.

[…] In an apparent concession, local prosecutors appear to have dropped a case against Chen Kegui’s mother, Ren Zongju, whom they accused of “harbouring a criminal” for helping her son before his capture, Chen Guangfu added.

But Chen Guangfu described a continued campaign of harassment against his family, with local thugs attacking his house with rocks, and posters describing his family as “traitors” placed on nearby streets.

Human Rights Watch provides more details on Chen Kegui’s illness and the various forms of “harassment and intimidation” to which his family has been subjected. “Chen Kegui urgently needs effective medical care,” commented the organization’s China director, Sophie Richardson. “Until the Beijing, Shandong, and Linyi authorities cease their persecution of the Chen family, it is hard to see what difference Xi Jinping’s administration is making over the previous leadership despite his promise to ‘put power in a cage of laws’.”

An editorial in The Washington Post last week noted Chen Guangcheng’s view that neither Beijing nor Washington has kept promises made last year:

It was a year ago this week that blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng escaped from illegal home detention in his native village in Shandong province and made his way to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he was given shelter. After days of intense negotiations between senior U.S. and Chinese officials, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a deal was struck under which Mr. Chen left the embassy. A senior U.S. official told reporters that among the commitments made by Chinese officials was that they would “investigate reported extra-legal activities committed by local Shandong authorities against Mr. Chen and his family.”

Ms. Clinton said that “making [China’s] commitments a reality is the next crucial task” and pledged that “the United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr. Chen and his family in the days, weeks and years ahead.”

Mr. Chen, who during the past year moved to New York to study at New York University, told us Thursday that, in his view, neither side has kept its word. […]

While Chen’s fears for his family appear to have been well-founded, worries that moving to the U.S. would doom him to irrelevance were not, according to Lijia Zhang, writing at The New York Times:

It happened to Wei Jingsheng, one of the most prominent Chinese dissidents, who moved to the United States in 1997. His calls for democracy once inspired so many in and outside of China. Not anymore.

[…] But on my recent trip to Chen Guangcheng’s hometown in rural Shandong, I saw that his spirit lives on — not only in the memories of people he has helped, many of whom have now become activists themselves, but also through Chen’s regular Internet contact with local activists. It’s a different world from when Wei Jingsheng went into exile.

[…] During my recent video call with Chen Guangcheng himself, he told me that he keeps in touch with people from all over the country. Before our conversation, he had been talking to a blind man from Inner Mongolia who runs a grocery store but also devotes much of his energy to helping other disabled people with their rights issues. Chen was planning to video-chat with a group of activists in Sichuan and give them his pitch about the importance of protecting their rights.

“How do people find you?” I asked. He replied with a laugh. “In this Internet age, if you are willing to be available, people can find you easily.”

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In an interview, Chen voiced anger over a prison sentence handed in November to his nephew, Chen Kegui, who the activist said had been severely beaten as retaliation for the escape that made headlines around the world.

“Not only has the Chinese government not fulfilled its own promises to me a year ago, but it has also become worse as they have not stopped persecuting my family members,” Chen said.

“This in itself shows that the Chinese communist regime has no intention to change its course,” he said.

Chen said the authorities in Shandong province had attempted to remove the four-year-old son of Chen Kegui from school last month, according to Radio Free Asia, and Chen Kegui’s father said he had been followed as he attempted to take the child to school. Chen pressed Congress to disclose the details of the deal brokered between the State Department and the Chinese government in May of last year, according to Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post:

He asked the panel to obtain “and publish the written and oral diplomatic agreements between China and the United States with regard to this incident of mine,” including a letter he wrote to China’s then-premier, Wen Jiabao, after seeking refuge in the U.S. Embassy compound.

The administration has never fully described the hectic events of last April, when Chen sought refuge in the embassy. He was then taken to a local hospital and finally granted a visa to the United States and allowed to leave.

A State Department spokesperson was asked about Chen’s testimony during Wednesday’s daily press briefing:

QUESTION: Well, is there some kind of secret document that you’re aware of?

MR. VENTRELL: Not that I’m aware of. I mean, certainly we have records of our diplomatic interactions, but –

QUESTION: No, no, no. But I mean something that would be – that maybe Secretary Clinton or Ambassador Locke or someone signed with the Chinese. Is there something in writing about the – which provides guarantees from the Chinese side about how his family would be treated? Or was it all done verbally?

MR. VENTRELL: I’m not sure on that question one way or another. We characterized publicly what we could about the negotiation at the time.

QUESTION: Well, he yesterday testified that there was such a – there is such a document out there. So if you could – I’m not suggesting, although I would like it if you would – if there is one, if you would release it, but I’m not asking for it to be released at the moment. I’d just like to know if there is one.

MR. VENTRELL: I’m not aware one way or another.

QUESTION: Well, can you ask?

MR. VENTRELL: I’d be happy to look into it, but I’m not aware one way or another.

See also CDT coverage of a recent inverview given by Chen and an op-ed he wrote in The Washington Post with Geng He, the wife of vanished human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng.

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“Political reforms didn’t stop under Hu [Jintao] and Wen [Jiabao] – they went backwards. So just like when people started talking about the Hu-Wen ‘new deal’ in 2003, now we start to talk about the Xi-Li ‘new deal’, it’s just wishful thinking.”

[…] Asked what he would say to Mr Obama, if he ever got the chance, Mr Chen said that ignoring China’s record on human rights was undermining America’s standing in the world.

“I would tell Mr Obama there is no small matter in international diplomacy. If an agreement between the US and China can’t be fulfilled, then US credibility as the standard bearer of universal values, freedom and democracy will be jeopardised.”

In op-ed at The Washington Post, Chen and Geng He, wife of vanished rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, urge the White House to push for an end to persecution of activists, lawyers and their families in China:

Our stories are flip sides of the same coin. Geng He sought asylum in the United States after Chinese authorities detained and brutally tortured her husband, the rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Chen Guangcheng, a legal activist, was a prisoner of conscience for many years before escaping house arrest last spring. Now in America, he is studying at New York University and advocating on behalf of his relatives, who continue to endure persecution in China because of his activism.

While our stories are different, the theme is the same: The Chinese government targets rights advocates and their families.

[…] Our stories are just two examples of Chinese authorities acting with impunity and complete disregard for the rule of law. But the attacks on our families are especially worrisome because they show that the government targets not only activists and their families but also the lawyers who have an ethical obligation to defend their clients’ rights against government abuses. Gao once said that you cannot be a rights lawyer in China without becoming a rights case yourself. And when these essential advocates and their families are targeted by the government, the international community must speak out on their behalf.

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Petitioner Hu Cheng from Chongqing has bought the phone numbers of several Beijing-based foreign news organizations, at 100 yuan each. He calls them repeatedly.

He tells them how he was locked up by the police while petitioning and they broke his legs. He cries on the phone while telling the story. Chinese news assistants answer the phone. They listen, and show sympathy, but seem to have no interest in publishing his story.

[…] “When those petitioners feel that they can’t have their voices heard by the authorities and the chance of solving problems is small, foreign media seems to be their last hope,” Jin Yong, deputy professor of China Communication University, told the Global Times.

[…] Zhang Chi, producer of VRT, the Belgian Dutch language public broadcaster, […] said blind barefoot lawyer Chen Guangcheng and artist Ai Weiwei are among the few people who have their voices heard through intense international news coverage and benefited from it.

See more on petitioners via CDT, including the sympathetic perspective of a former interceptor who was employed to stop them.

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“In fact, they’ve never stopped monitoring us for one day after Chen Guangcheng left,” the brother, Chen Guangfu, who lives in Dongshigu village, in Shandong Province, said Wednesday. “There’s still surveillance in the village. The guards, they’re still here, just a bit more hidden.”

He said he was followed recently. “The situation is still quite tense here,” he said. He also reported new pressure on his son, Chen Kegui, who was sentenced to three years and three months in prison in November for assaulting and injuring a government official who broke into the family’s home in April during a frantic search for the escaped Mr. Chen. The brief trial was riddled with irregularities that thwarted the defense, said lawyers supporting the family.

When Chen Guangfu and other family members visited on Feb. 28, Chen Kegui told them he was beaten and threatened by guards before the trial, and that he has since been warned by prison officials not to try any appeals of his sentence, said the father.

[…] Prison guards kept close watch on the visit, and Chen Kegui appeared reluctant to recount details of what he has been through, Chen Guangcheng said. “It’s clear that there are other things he’s holding back from saying,” he added.

See more on Chen Kegui’s case via CDT.

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“On Feb. 28, my elder brother went to visit my nephew Chen Kegui in the detention center and, for the first time, Chen Kegui told his dad with great fear that he had been tortured,” Chen Guangcheng said at a human rights forum in Washington.

[...]

He said that China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party’s secretary of the local public security bureau had also threatened Chen Kegui that if he were to try to appeal his case, his prison term would be extended to a “life sentence.”

“They also threaten the lives of his parents and his children. On a daily basis in the detention center he is reminded of those threats,” Chen said.

At a recent talk at Yale University, Chen spoke about legal reform in China with regards to his nephew’s case. From the Yale Daily News:

At a panel sponsored by the China Law Center, Chen and two other panelists — New York University Law School professor Jerome A. Cohen ’51 LAW ’55, who is a co-director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, and New York University Law School professor Ira Belkin, the executive director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute — discussed different aspects of the criminal justice system in China as well as structural and systematic difficulties within it. Chen said the greatest threat to the well-being of China’s legal system is that the Communist Party of China is above the law.

“The laws are always guided by party policies,” Chen said. “That’s the fundamental reality of how the law system actually works in China today and the biggest barrier to the law system from improving.”

[...]

After the village Party Committee discovered his escape from house arrest, he said, the party vice secretary took “gangsters” to his brother’s home and started beating him, his wife and son with clubs, smashing all possessions and robbing all valuables. Chen’s brother was detained on no legal basis, while the thugs continued beating his sister-in-law and his nephew, Chen added. His nephew, beaten half to death, grabbed a knife and attempted to resist the gangsters without seriously wounding anyone — a few days later, though, his nephew was accused of malicious injury, he said. Chen’s nephew was later sentenced to three years and three months in prison without proper legal procedure, while those who attacked him faced no charges.

“The party can get away with crimes of breaking and entering, robbery and beating people up, while the person who resists all of this becomes the criminal,” Chen said.

In a recent interview with the South China Morning Post, Chen expressed skepticism over the likelihood of the Chinese government implementing rule of law and constitutionalism under the leadership of Xi Jinping:

Do you believe that the new Chinese leadership is embarking on a genuine “rule of law” campaign in the wake of the recent Bo Xilai and princeling corruption scandals?

I think the idea that Xi Jinping will change as a result of the Bo Xilai affair is completely unfounded. The most important thing is to look at his actions. We have all heard enough nice talk, and the key now is to look at what he does. If there are specific actions taken, then we can believe the talk.

Under the current system, the Communist Party sits brazenly above the constitution and the law and makes no effort to reform.

What specifically would have to happen to indicate to you that this effort of the new leadership is genuine and a sign of progress?

For example, they could eliminate policies that restrict the formation of other political parties and press freedoms, and truly protect freedom of speech. They could separate the power of the party from the government, which now affects all levels of government, from the central authorities to the local authorities. Make the judiciary independent. Let the party manage its affairs, and let the government carry out its duties according to the law. If they can do this, we will believe them.

So, up to now they haven’t introduced any new measures that might mark a path towards change?

No. If they put out a timeline, I would believe that. Unfortunately, at the moment, under the current system, the Communist Party sits brazenly above the constitution and the law and makes no effort to reform. How, in this scenario, are we to believe they will respect the constitution?

Read more about Chen Guangcheng and Chen Kegui via CDT.

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Sun Wenguang, a retired economics professor from Shandong Province, was not among those venturing overseas, however. And not by choice. An author whose books offer a critical assessment of Communist Party rule, Mr. Sun, 79, has been repeatedly denied a passport without explanation.

“I’d love to visit my daughter in America and my 90-year-old brother in Taiwan, but the authorities have other ideas,” he said. “I feel like I’m living in a cage.”

[…] “It’s just another way to punish people they don’t like,” said Wu Zeheng, a government critic and Buddhist spiritual leader from southern Guangdong Province whose failed entreaties to obtain a passport have prevented him from accepting at least a dozen speaking invitations in Europe and North America.

China’s passport restrictions extend to low-level military personnel, Tibetan monks and even the security personnel who process passport applications. “I feel so jealous when I see all my friends taking vacations in Singapore or Thailand but the only way I could join them is to quit my job,” said a 28-year-old police detective in Beijing.

Chen Guangcheng’s brother and mother have both recently had passport applications rejected, according to Lin Jing at Radio Free Asia. Chen Guangfu and Wang Jinxiang still hope to be able to visit the legal activist in New York, where he went to study following his dramatic escape from illegal house arrest last April.

“The authorities wouldn’t accept our application, and of course we are very disappointed,” Chen Guangfu said in an interview this week, after the family’s request was rejected earlier this month.

“My mother knows that she won’t have many more opportunities to go and see her son in the U.S., and she wanted to go while her health still allowed it,” he said.

Chen Guangfu said the authorities had told the family that it was very hard to get visas to the United States, and that the family were unlikely to be issued a visa without an invitation letter.

[…] Beijing-based rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong said the reasons given by police, who must approve all applications for passports in the first instance, were ridiculous.

[…] “The reasons given by police were laughable…It’s for U.S. consular officials to decide whether or not to issue a visa.”

See also an interview at The Atlantic with Columbia University’s Robert Barnett on denial of passports to Tibetans, via CDT.

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Sizing up the new Chinese leaders who assumed power in November, [Chen] painted a bleak picture, describing the situation as “dire.”

“The survival of the Communist Party has always taken precedence over rule of law and basic freedoms in China,” he said. “And there is nothing to indicate that this situation will be any different under [President] Xi Jinping. To this day, the Chinese Communist Party has not given any sign that it will change or do the right thing.”

[...] Not everyone agrees about the current Chinese leadership and its ability to change.

“We should not completely lose hope for Xi Jinping,” said Cheng li, director of research and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. “Now is still his honeymoon period…that he demonstrates some of the promises, some of the progress, like his trip to southern China emphasizing reform and openness. Now whether he will deliver, we do not know. It’s still early stages. I’m still hopeful.”

But in the Wall Street Journal, Yiyi Lu writes that people wondering whether Xi is a reformer are asking the wrong question. She writes that Xi and other top leaders are well aware of the risks of reform and are trying to manage them:

How do they attempt to manage the risks then?

First, in all his major speeches since becoming party leader, Xi Jinping has repeatedly and unequivocally stated that China must adhere to Marxism and the socialist path and carry out reform under the Communist Party’s leadership (in Chinese). While these speeches are bound to disappoint liberals and many foreign China watchers, they fulfill two crucial purposes: reassuring conservatives who worry that reform would lead to Soviet-style collapse of the party and the state, and sending a clear message to liberals to discourage them from agitating for radical change.

Second, recognizing the importance of finding the right methods, the new leadership has refrained from drawing a detailed roadmap for reform, opting instead for an approach that combines “top-level design” and “crossing the river by feeling the stones” (in Chinese). This approach leaves room for adjustments and corrections should any reform measure go awry. It favors phased reform over shock therapy. It also ensures that the leadership does not have to show its hand too early, which could serve to alert and galvanize the potential opposition.

Third, the leadership stresses that in deciding how fast and vigorously to push through reform measures, the main consideration is that stability should not be jeopardized. In Xi Jinping’s words, the degree of intensity of reform and the speed of development must match the level of social tolerance for them.

Finally, after taking office, the leadership quickly launched new initiatives aimed at fighting corruption, curtailing the privileges of officials and curing bureaucratic malaise. In contrast, it has proceeded cautiously on the issues of media censorship, freedom of speech or freedom of information. This shows that the leadership has prioritized reform measures that have the broadest popular support and that promise concrete benefits to the populace over reforms that appeal most to liberal intellectuals and that tend to raise expectations and foment discontent rather than increase satisfaction with the government’s performance.

Read more about Xi Jinping and political reform in China, via CDT.

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On Tuesday, the paper’s editorial committee was to hold a fourth round of negotiations with its top management, which is part of the provincial propaganda office, according to a Southern Weekly editor. The editor spoke on condition of anonymity because of an internal directive not to talk to the foreign media.

Propaganda officials want the newspaper to publish — as per normal — on Thursday but editors are negotiating over whether to do so, and the terms under which they would be willing, for example, if they could include a letter to readers explaining the incident, the editor said.

The committee is also pushing a larger appeal to abolish censorship of the newspaper’s content prior to publication, the editor said. The suggestion is that Communist Party leaders could provide direction but not interfere with reporting and editing, and should refrain from taking issue with content until after publication, the editor said.

Meanwhile, protests continued outside Southern Weekly’s headquarters, with the newspaper’s supporters facing off against a small Maoist counter-protest. From James Pomfret at Reuters:

The scuffles broke out after supporters of the paper, published on Thursdays, jeered and skirmished with a small band of leftists holding posters of Chairman Mao Zedong and signs denouncing the Southern Weekly as “a traitor newspaper” for defying the party.

“These people (leftists) are paid agitators of the government, twisting the truth with propaganda. We had to do something about it,” said pro-press freedom protester Cheng Qiubo.

Dozens of police officers had to intervene, though the protests were allowed to continue. Two technicians with a ladder tried to rig a surveillance camera to the branch of a tree outside the newspaper gates, but were swiftly surrounded and shouted down by angry crowds and forced to retreat.

The Economist’s James Miles observed (using the newspaper’s alternative English name):

Small group of leftists only persistent protesters outside Southern Weekend, Spectators wave 50 cents at them. twitter.com/jarmiles/statu…

— James Miles (@jarmiles) January 8, 2013

The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Mozur posted video of the heated confrontation, while others published dozens of photos on Facebook and other social media sites. Some showed Guy Fawkes masks inspired by the Alan Moore graphic novel V for Vendetta, via the 2005 Hollywood adaptation that aired last month on CCTV. From The New York Times’ Jonah Kessel:

Some freedom of speech advocates wearing v for vendetta masks. Said he saw the movie on CCTV recently and ordered the mask

— Jonah Kessel (@jonah_kessel) January 8, 2013

Tea Leaf Nation tracked online support for Southern Weekly:

[… T]hese include some of Chinese social media’s most high profile users from all walks of life. Celebrities such as actress Yao Chen (with 31 million followers) and actor Chen Kui (with 27 million followers) tweeted explicit messages of support on Sina Weibo, a microblog platform. Yao quoted the 1970 Nobel lecture of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author and dissident, along with a logo of Southern Weekend. Chen was more direct: “I am not that deep, and I don’t play word games; I support the friends at Southern Weekend.”

[…] Ren Zhiqiang (@任志强), one of the most outspoken businessmen in China with almost 13 million followers, tweeted on Sina Weibo, “Freedom of press and freedom of speech are rights given to the society and the people by the constitution; they are also symbols of human rights and freedom. Yet they have become pipe dreams without the rule of law, being seriously distorted and restricted. If truth is not allowed to be spoken, would truth disappear?”

Li Chengpeng and Han Han, China’s two most famous bloggers, both wrote articles in support of Southern Weekend. Li wrote, “We don’t need tall buildings, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth. We don’t need the second highest GDP in the world, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth. We don’t need a fleet of aircraft carriers, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth.”

Han Han’s post was previously featured at CDT on Monday.

A Global Times editorial, ‘Southern Weekend’s ‘Letter to Readers’ Truly Makes One Ponder‘, on the other hand, reiterated a claim posted by Southern Weekly’s official Sina Weibo account: that provincial propaganda authorities in fact had nothing to do with the controversial edits. China Media Project’s David Bandurski had previously reported that newspaper staff felt this to be “completely at odds with the truth”, and that it was issued “without confirmation or authorization from members of the newspaper’s editorial committee.” The Times editorial went on to hit other points from a propaganda directive obtained by CDT: that “Party control of the media is an unwavering basic principle”, and that “external hostile forces are involved in the development of the situation”—including, it alleged, Chen Guangcheng. From translated highlights at Fei Chang Dao:

These people are making spirited demands, and while on the surface they are going after a specific person and event, its obvious to everyone watching that their target is the entire system that involves the media.

Whether these people like it or not, this is common sense: given the current state of China’s society and government, the kind of “free media” that these people yearn for in their hearts simply cannot exist. All of China’s media can develop only to the extent China does, and media reform must remain part-and-parcel of China’s overall reform, and the media absolutely will not become a “political special zone” of China.

[…] Even in the West, the mainstream media will not choose to openly oppose the government.

A version of the editorial also appeared on the English-language Global Times site.

The Diplomat’s David Cohen reported that, as instructed, the editorial was republished by major web portals including Sohu, Sina and Tencent. Each, however, added a disclaimer to the effect that republication did not equal endorsement. Further defiance was shown in screen grabs of headlines on sites’ front pages, arranged so that their first characters spelled out messages of support. According to Amy Li at South China Morning Post, the editorial also appeared in Guangzhou Information Times, Guangzhou’s New Express Daily, Beijing Youth Daily, Beijing Times, Hangzhou’s City Express, Shenzhen’s Daily Sunshine, Xi’an’s Sanqin Daily, Xi’an Evening News and China Business News.

David Bandurski saw the leaked directive as potentially ominous. From China Media Project:

If it is true, as Berkeley’s China Digital Times reports, that media have been issued a propaganda directive on the Southern Weekly incident that deflects blame from Guangdong propaganda officials toward foreign “hostile forces,” that is not an encouraging sign.

Readers should understand that the Southern Weekly crisis is not just a face-off between pro-reform voices and status-quo Party conservatives. In this case, it was propaganda officials in Guangdong — the spiritual heart of China’s reform and opening — who upset the status-quo by exercising censorship to such an intrusive extent that the situation became unacceptable to working journalists, most of whom had already made an uneasy peace with media controls.

The crisis at the Nanfang Media Group is not just about whether Xi Jinping is serious about the ostensible new openness and responsiveness attributed to him by sustained state propaganda. It is about whether China could be moving backward on the issue of media freedom, which would send worrying signals about the overall direction of the new leadership.

At The Wall Street Journal, Danwei’s Jeremy Goldkorn also discussed the situation in terms of prospects for media and internet freedom, saying that “I don’t believe there’s anybody in the senior leadership who’s committed to those ideals.”

An editorial in The Telegraph suggested that the new leadership’s response will be revealing, finding some encouragement in a People’s Daily editorial with a different tone to Global Times piece:

This is Mr Xi’s first serious test and early indications suggest that he is treading carefully. Demonstrations have been lightly policed and yesterday the People’s Daily, the party’s official outlet, said that propaganda officials should “follow the rhythm of the times” and help the authorities create a “pragmatic and open-minded image”. On the face of it, this heralds a welcome and more tolerant official approach to the media. Whether or not it amounts to anything of substance will become clear in the next few days.

Guangdong’s new Party chief Hu Chunhua will also be under scrutiny: the posting is, in part, a near-final test of his suitability for future national leadership.

For now, however, it remains unclear which way Beijing will move. From Jonah Kessel and Chris Buckley at The New York Times:

Both supporters and critics of Southern Weekend journalists have claimed that Mr. Xi would back their cause.

“I don’t believe that Xi is totally hypocritical when he talks about reform,” said Mr. Chen [Min, also known by the pen name Xiao Shu], who was forced out of the newspaper in 2011.

“The Southern Weekend journalists have said that they accept party control, but the question is what kind of control and how far should it go unchallenged,” Mr. Chen added.

Update (January 8, 11:20 am PST):

Reuters has reported that Guangdong Provincial Party chief Hu Chunhua has stepped into the fray and negotiated an agreement between propaganda officials and Southern Weekly:

Under Hu’s deal, the source said, newspaper workers would end their strike and return to work, the paper would print as normal this week, and most staff would not face punishment. “Guangdong’s Hu personally stepped in to resolve this,” the source said.

“He gets personal image points by showing that he has guts and the ability to resolve complex situations. In addition, the signal that he projects through this is one of relative openness, it’s a signal of a leader who is relatively steady.”

The standoff at the Southern Weekly, long seen as a beacon of independent and in-depth reporting in China’s highly controlled media landscape, has led to demands for the country’s new leadership to grant greater media freedoms.

[...]

It wasn’t possible to immediately corroborate Hu’s involvement in brokering the deal with editorial staff, who may be bound by an agreement not to speak out.

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“This is a case that tramples on the rule of law. It is a declaration of war against fairness and justice in the world. I absolutely cannot accept this and am very, very angry,” said Chen Guangcheng in an interview from his home in New York where he has been studying English and law. “There is no doubt that this is a kind of retaliation against me.”

[…] Since Chen Kegui disappeared into police custody in May, Yinan authorities have not officially notified his family about the prosecution nor have they let family members see him or hire their own lawyers to defend him. Lawyers were instead appointed to him, and one of them told his father Chen Guangfu about the trial only on Friday morning.

[…] “I feel very disappointed,” the father said. “I had believed that once the new generation of leaders came to power there would be improvements in the rule of law, but now it looks like the situation is still the same.”

Activist Hu Jia, a close friend of Chen Guangcheng and one of the first people he met with after his escape, described Chen Guangfu’s predicament on Twitter as the trial was underway:

陈克贵的父亲陈光福自始至终没能直接和法院工作人员交涉上，他一进入法院大门就被沂南县的警察围住，警察们明确告知大哥只能做证人，在大哥拒绝作证人的情况下，他们不让大哥旁听。现在十余名警察围着陈光福，有些曾参与过陈光诚案。他在法庭的路对面等待庭审结束的消息。 #陈克贵

— Hu Jia 胡佳 (@hu_jia) November 30, 2012

Chen Kegui’s father, Chen Guangfu, has at no point been able to make direct representations to the courthouse staff: as soon as he set foot through the door, he was surrounded by Yinan county police who bluntly informed him that he could only be present [if he testified] as a witness, and that if he refused they would not let him attend the trial. Now ten or so policemen are surrounding him, some of whom previously took part in Chen Guangcheng’s case. He’s waiting across the road from the courthouse for word of the hearing’s result.

11月30日，光福大哥会是最难受的人。上午主持祭奠父亲，然后马不停蹄赶到法院，想要见到身处牢狱别离218天的儿子。但却只能见证儿子被枉法审判。

— Hu Jia 胡佳 (@hu_jia) November 30, 2012

Chen Guangfu may be the unhappiest person of all today. In the morning, he directed the memorial ceremony for his father; afterwards, he immediately dashed to the courthouse, hoping to see in person the son who’s been away in prison for 218 days. But in the end he could only witness his son’s twisted trial.

Chen explained to The Guardian that “I hoped they would tell me early so that I could prepare, but since they didn’t, there is nothing I can do. I have not heard from my son, and the lawyers appointed by government didn’t tell me anything.” Following the trial, The Guardian’s Tania Branigan reported reactions from the family’s preferred lawyers:

Chen Wuquan, who was hired by Chen Kegui’s family to defend him but rejected by the court, said: “I can’t accept the result. Chen Kegui is not guilty at all. His behaviour was legitimate self-defence, not the crime of intentional injury. From a legal perspective, the result is unacceptable.”

[…] Teng Biao, another lawyer rejected by the court, said holding the case at such short notice ensured that they had no time to reach Yinan to help the family with legal advice.

Teng added that the defendant’s relatives had not seen him since his detention, noting: “No one has a clue about his condition.”

Human rights organisations have given scathing assessments of the trial. From Amnesty International’s Roseann Rife and Human Rights Watch’s Sophie Richardson, respectively:

“Chen Kegui was today tried by the same court that in 2006 sentenced his uncle Chen Guangcheng to prison on trumped up charges. The family has since suffered a catalogue of abuse at the hands of local authorities which central authorities have failed to investigate despite promises to the contrary.

“The sentence is appalling. It is clear that Chen Kegui’s trial was not fair. We are concerned that sentencing him to imprisonment for something that many consider self defence is nothing more than retaliation for his uncle’s escape.”

“Prosecuting Chen Guangcheng’s nephew was a test of China’s respect for the rule of law, and both the nephew, Chen Kegui, and the rule of law lost [….] This case bore the same disturbing hallmarks as Chen Guangcheng’s persecution – incommunicado detention, denial of lawyers of his choice, and a politicized and closed trial.”

[…] “Chen Kegui’s case not only violated Chinese and international legal standards, it also suggests that the new leadership in Beijing can’t or won’t follow through on commitments to investigate local officials implicated in wrongdoing and egregious human rights abuses [….] And that in turn is a worrying indication of what lies ahead.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Amnesty International, Chen Guangcheng, chen kegui, Hu Jia, human rights watch, lawyers, Teng Biao, trials
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Chen shocked the world in April when he made a daring, next-to-impossible escape, climbing over the wall surrounding his house (breaking his foot in the process) and catching a ride some 350 miles to Beijing, where he took refuge in the U.S. Embassy. After a tense, days-long diplomatic standoff closely involving Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (No. 3), a deal was struck under which Chen would be allowed to travel to the United States to study. Now at New York University, Chen has embraced his new role as an evangelist for human rights, making the case that incremental change — one village or even one person at a time — can eventually transform a superpower. Against all odds, he remains optimistic, believing that China, taking a cue from Japan and South Korea, must “learn Eastern democracy.” He even thinks it’s inevitable: “Nobody can stop the progress of history,” he says.

An interview with Chen Guangcheng by Isaac Stone Fish accompanies the list. In it, Chen discusses how the central government allows abuses by local authorities—see Guizhou journalist Li Yuanlong’s detention last week for a recent example—and the chances of change or even revolution in China’s near future.

The central government definitely knew I was illegally detained at home. As for how the local authorities invented lies to frame me to put me in prison, as for how they persecuted my entire family, [the central government] didn’t necessarily know about the details. Yet now, six months later, I still haven’t seen the central government follow the country’s laws and keep its promise and investigate and deal with those officials who recklessly and illegally committed crimes.

Throughout Chinese history, has any emperor said they want to hand over power? Every emperor wants his power to last generation after generation. But can they? The Communist Party cannot monopolize all of the power in the country forever. This is a reality they must accept.

The possibility of China facing a revolution in 2013 is pretty big. This is something that the powers that be in China understand more than anyone else. It’s a pity that international society still does not understand this and has still not prepared. America should immediately start moving from dealing with China’s powers that be to dealing with the Chinese people. It definitely won’t be like 1989.

Chen does not appear to view the possibility of revolution with any great relish: when asked what the worst idea of the year is, he answered “violence”.

Controversial artist Ai Weiwei, still unable to leave China over a year after his 81-day detention in 2011, is ranked 26th:

[…] Ai has found ways to occupy his time. When one of his Twitter followers asked in May whether he was working on any new artwork, Ai tweeted back, “I am the artwork.” In April, he set up cameras throughout his house, providing a live feed on his website and to his 170,000 followers. (“Twitter is my city, my favorite city,” he told FP this year.) The authorities soon pressured him into removing the cameras, evidently preferring that they be the only ones to watch the rotund 55-year-old work on his computer and play with his cats.

But make no mistake — this performance art is deeply political. Throughout his career Ai has insisted that artists have a duty to humanity that outweighs the obligations of nationalism. Even declaring one’s opposition to “trafficking children, selling HIV-infected blood, [and] operating slave labor coal pits” is enough to get branded as “anti-China” in today’s political climate, Ai once noted on his blog, asking, “If we aren’t anti-China, are we still human?”

Foreign Policy also published a slideshow from Ai’s first North American retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., noting that “the artist was not in attendance.”

British singer Elton John added a concert dedication to Ai’s list of recent accolades on Sunday. While dismissing this “disrespectful” gesture, Global Times took the opportunity to critique Chen and Ai’s inclusion in the Foreign Policy list:

Western society is seriously biased against China. When US magazine Foreign Policy compiled a list of 100 global thinkers from around the world, the first Chinese on that list was blind activist Chen Guangcheng, and the second was Ai Weiwei. Even to Chinese people who have sympathy for these two people, this list may seem ridiculous.

In a diverse era, we don’t hold that the existence of people like Chen and Ai is unexpected in China. Also, we don’t believe that the impact they have brought should be denied completely.

The selection of Chen and Ai makes people wonder whether the word “thinker” in Chinese and English have different meanings. We can just say that some Westerners are increasingly unable to contain themselves over China’s rise. They cannot control China through normal means and they are more likely to rush their fences.

A more nuanced piece of Aiconoclasm came last week from Paul Gladston at Randian:

There are […] significant dangers in the upholding of Ai as our sole representative/mediator of artistic resistance to authority within China. While Ai’s bluntly confrontational and often bombastic stance can be readily digested within Western liberal-democratic contexts where romantic notions of heroic dissent in the face of overwhelming power still persist, it is by no means representative of the critical positioning of most other Chinese artists. Ai may have situated himself admirably behind enlightened westernized ideals of freedom and openness, but the sheer bluntness and reductive simplicity of his critical approach to authority have effectively foreclosed a more searching discussion of contemporary art within China as well as the complex, web of localized cultural, social, political and economic forces that surround its production and reception.

[…] Ai Weiwei is right in drawing our repeated attention to the debilitating injustices of totalitarian power within China. He is also right to upbraid western viewers for their inability to see past what are for them the pleasurable ambiguities of contemporary Chinese art. Less convincing, however, is Ai’s wholly reductive view of the critical possibilities of contemporary art in China. By insisting on his own stridently oppositional approach towards power as the only legitimate game in town, and because we are already highly familiar with that approach, [he] has misrepresented the contemporary Chinese artworld. One might add that Ai is also romanticizing the conditions of criticality in the West.

At 54 in the Foreign Policy list is Yu Jianrong, for his concise but detailed roadmap for reform.

In April, he released a succinct, two-phase plan he called a “10-Year Outline of China’s Social and Political Development.” Despite its bland title, Yu’s blueprint offers a timetable for Chinese reform that for once is as credible as it is ambitious. The plan puts dates and specifics to the task, advocating, for example, a stronger law on private property, the revealing of “information pertaining to government affairs” and “officials’ property,” and the abolition of “speech crimes,” after which China should “open up” the media and political parties. Yu’s short manifesto immediately caused a splash when he released it to his nearly 1.5 million followers on the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo (though the government has maintained a deafening silence). “We’ve already decided to change,” Yu explained in an interview. “The question is: In which direction do we change, and from where do we start?” Sweeping reform in this authoritarian land of 1.3 billion won’t be easy, but Yu’s plan is as good a place to begin as any. The era, he said, of crossing the river “by feeling the stones” is over.

China Media Project’s David Bandurski translated Yu’s plan in March. Soon afterwards, Didi Kirsten Tatlow described it at The International Herald Tribune, together with some criticism from Tsinghua University political scientist Liu Yu:

Master plans like Mr. Kang [Youwei]’s, or Mr. Yu’s are “unrealistic,” she said.

“All Chinese intellectuals, especially the men, they tend to blur the line with being an official and then they’re thinking, ‘How should I design a system for the country?’ and ‘How to make progress?’

“In the West there are intellectuals who make proposals on specific things, but in general they don’t make plans for the whole country,” she said.

What is needed instead, she believes, is a broad debate, among ordinary people.

“A good plan should involve the whole society,” she said. “There should be a big debate on where the country should be going.”

Yu’s nomination for best idea of 2012 is Mo Yan’s controversial selection for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mo’s chief rival for the award, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, took 49th place on the Foreign Policy list as a consolation prize.

At 69 is environmentalist Ma Jun:

[…] A journalist turned environmentalist who founded the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, Ma applies scientific rigor to exposing such corporate violations (more than 90,000 to date), flagging everything from a small coal-tar factory improperly storing its dangerous waste to Apple suppliers poisoning workers with a toxic chemical used on touch screens — as well as local governments that flout environmental regulations across China. Dozens of major multinationals now consult Ma’s pollution readings when working with suppliers in China. And by documenting environmental violations that had long been obvious but were never compiled in a way the public could easily understand, Ma has given statistical ammunition to Chinese citizens trying to nudge the Communist Party into cleaning up its act.

Wang Jisi, “China’s most respected expert on the United States”, came in at 73:

[…] What does Wang want us to know? That the feel-good stories U.S. officials tell themselves about China’s global ascent are an elaborate form of denial. In an influential monograph co-authored by Brookings Institution senior fellow Kenneth Lieberthal, Wang this year described China’s actions on the world stage as rooted in the conclusion that “America will seek to constrain or even upset China’s rise.” Beijing’s view, he says, is that the United States is “heading for decline” and that China’s development model provides an “alternative to Western democracy and market economies.” The result? “[T]hese views make many Chinese political elites suspect that it is the United States,” Wang says, “that is ‘on the wrong side of history.’”

And at 83 is the Taiwanese-American former head of Google China, venture capitalist Kai-fu Lee:

In an article he published on his LinkedIn page in October, Lee named China’s narrowly focused school curriculum and the risk-averse nature of Chinese students, as well as the country’s chaotic Internet environment, among the reasons China hasn’t yet produced its own Mark Zuckerberg. That may be why he has also started a popular education website encouraging Chinese students to think more creatively. Although none of his companies has exploded yet, Lee’s ultimate contribution may be more fundamental: laying both the intellectual and financial groundwork for a revolution in the world’s largest online community.

Perhaps more significant to China for now than any of the above are Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein, who top the list having begun to pilot the formerly reliable Chinese satellite of Myanmar (also known as Burma) into a more open and international orbit:

Aung San Suu Kyi, the soft-spoken, iconic political activist whom devotees call simply “the Lady,” may not seem like an obvious partner for Thein Sein, but she has become one by doing what few legends of her stature can: embracing the messy pragmatism of politics. Although Burma’s struggles are far from over — she has warned that international investment has been too rapid, and ethnic violence is escalating — the willingness of both the Lady and the general to embrace short-term compromise and foster long-term reconciliation in what was only recently one of the world’s most isolated countries is something to celebrate.

Fittingly, Aung San Suu Kyi finally was able to accept her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in June. She used the occasion to remind the world of those like her, who struggle in the most forlorn places: “To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity.” It is a sentiment still felt from Aleppo to Havana, Pyongyang to Tehran, but also, as Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein have shown, one that doesn’t need to be permanent.

See more on Chen Guangcheng, Ai Weiwei, Yu Jianrong, Ma Jun, Wang Jisi, Kai-fu Lee and Myanmar/Burma at CDT.

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I had read Daniel C. Chung’s article in The New York Times after my arrival in the United States, where he says that I should be careful about letting people exploit me to represent their interests. I appreciate his opinion, but I already have my own thoughts on this. If any person, organization, party—whatever—works to promote human rights and social justice, I will cooperate with them. Don’t call that exploitation. Because exploitation would be for individual benefit. If in general you feel like you can’t accomplish anything because someone tells you to do something, then what will you ever do? If your left hand wants to cooperate and is clasped by your right, is it being exploited? If your right hand comes to your left’s aid, is it being exploited? It doesn’t matter which hand is which. It matters what they are trying to accomplish.

[…] I know Boehner and Pelosi might not agree [about which rights I represent]. I think I protect the rights of unborn children, the rights of women, and the rights of any citizen. Human rights are not just children’s rights or women’s rights. Men have rights. The elderly have rights. This is a human problem, a fundamental concept. I don’t think Mr. Boehner and Ms. Pelosi differ on this idea. They may promote rights from different angles, but I don’t think one-hundred-percent agreement is necessary.

Meanwhile Ai Weiwei, one of GQ’s Men Of 2011, came in at number nine last week in Salon’s Sexiest Men of 2012:

Ah, the eternally irresistible voluptuary. He attacks life with such mesmerizing gusto; you can’t help getting swept up in his enthusiasm – and imagining getting swept up by him. And he looks just like Ai Weiwei.

[… The documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry] makes it “very clear that he pulls hot chicks by the carload.” Oh, hell yeah he does.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Hu Jia is an old friend of Chen and among the first people he met after fleeing to Beijing. A champion of democracy and political freedom, Hu, 39, was arrested and sentenced to three and a half years in prison on subversion charges before the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

[…] “I’ve always told the authorities, we’re playing the game of cat and mouse — but I am the cat,” he added.

Inspired by the likes of Hu and Chen, analysts see a trend of more people in the younger generation — armed with legal knowledge and Internet skills — joining the ranks of human rights activists at a time when mass discontent over problems like a widening income gap and rampant official corruption simmer beneath the surface.

Former English teacher He Peirong — known by her online name Pearl — was so touched by Chen’s story that she became involved in the plan to rescue him from his village to Beijing. Police in her hometown of Nanjing detained her for a week after Chen’s escape in April, but she says she feels no regrets.

“As we become more educated and better off, I think our political conscience will become stronger, as more people wake up to stand up for their rights,” she said, adding that police had warned her not to go to Beijing during the Party Congress.

The article also describes the current situation of Chen’s mother, brother and nephew, Chen Kegui, following the younger Chen’s arrest. See more on Chen Guangcheng via CDT.

© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media.

30 September 2005

On 1 October, the main media in Guangdong Province will publish a news article on “The Earlier Motion to Dismiss the Village Committee Chair in Taishi Village Has Become Invalid, Safeguarding the Lawful Rights and Interests of the Villagers of Taishi According to the Law,” all websites are requested to not transmit this news article, forum trackers are also not to post this article.

30 September 2005

(1) It is not permitted to publish “Zhuhai Municipal People’s Congress Launches Appraisal and Judgment Activities, Designs Dismissal Rules” and other reports, existing reports must be promptly removed. Do not disseminate or discuss the viewpoint that “major matters must go through the National People’s Congress.”

2005-9-30

(2) The Yannan Community has already been closed, no website may discuss this topic!

29 September 2005

(1) Concerning the “Wang Binyu Case” and the “Panyu Taishi Village Incident,” only use Xinhua copy, it is strictly prohibited to use copy from any other source. Concerning the Wang Binyu case, only positive guiding posts can be issued, and these may only been posted after the Foreign Propaganda Office appoints a special person to examine and verify the “keeping the gate,” other posts must be completely cleaned up. Concerning the incident of recalling village officials in Taishi Village, Panyu, all posts already on forums are to be completely deleted without exception.

(2) Concerning matters of “civil servant salary system reform,” the following requirements are reiterated: websites are only to reprint Xinhua copy, without permission, they may not reprint information from any other source. Articles concerning this matter are not to be dealt with prominently, do not set up news trackers, do not set up special subject pages, forums are not to discuss this.

(3) Concerning the matter of “the Suicide of the Major of Korla City, Xinjiang,” without permissions, websites may not report this without exception. They must strengthen management, and timely block and delete relevant information.

28 September 2005

Do not report or play up the “Minister of Communications Zhang Chunxian Welcomes Information on Honest and Clean Government Supervision,” corresponding reports and commentaries must be immediately deleted.

28 September 2005

This week, focus on inspection and control of: online information aimed at the Beijing “Aircom” company withholding donations from netizens to the plaintiff in the Harbin “Japanese Army Gas Shell Case.”

This week, focus on inspection and control of: domestic and online information concerning incidents on the strike of workers of Special Steel in Chongqing, the incident of the rally of Anshan Steel workers in Liaoning, the incident of student protest of Sichuan Science and Engineering Institute students, and on the cholera epidemic in Fuzhou.

Matters concerning the Anshan Steel worker rallies may not be reported online without exception, timely block and delete corresponding information.

26 September 2005

(1) It is prohibited to explore the 17th Party Congress (The 17th National People’s Congress); note: regardless of whether netizens themselves start discussion or news media reports are reprinted, it is to be deleted without exception.

(2) Content related to foreign reports on any epidemic happening in our country is to be deleted without exception. Note; regardless of whether it is foreign or domestic, all media reports concerning disease epidemics (past ones that the masses know about are not included, such as SARS, etc.), are to be deleted first, afterwards, obey Notices.

25 September 2005

Matters related to the construction of a luxurious schoolhouse in Linhai, Zhejiang are not to be reported without exception!

22 September 2005

On 25 September, Xinhua will issue the “Copy concerning Website Clean-up and Rectification,” this may not be transmitted and may not be discussed. Content related to this is to be deleted without exception once discovered.

20 September 2005

The recent matter of a Henan person hijacking a taxi in Wangfujing, killing the driver and hitting some people, is not to be reported without exception.

10 September 2005

(1) Do not report on the event concerning the walkout of Peking University student Liu Jianfeng anymore. Existing content is to be deleted, forums are not to discuss it.

(2) Xinhua foreign-oriented copy concerning the Chinese Catholic leader responding to journalists’ questions may not be reprinted.

2 September 2005

During supervision, if the text “Notes from Birth Planning Investigation in Linyi, Shandong” is encountered, it is to be immediately deleted!

2005年9月北京网管办发出的禁令

2005-9-30

10月1日，广东省主要媒体将刊发”太石村原罢免村委会主任动议失效 依法维护太石村民合法权利”新闻稿，请各网站不转发此新闻稿，论坛跟帖也不贴发此稿
2005-9-30

1：不准发“珠海市人大开展述职评议活动、设计罢官规则”等报道，已有的要迅速撤除。不传播讨论“重大事项必须通过全国人大”的观点。

2：燕南社区已被关闭，关于此话题任何网站不准讨论！
2005-9-29

1、关于“王斌余案”和“番禺太石村事件”只使用新华社通稿，严禁使用其他任何来源稿件。关于王斌余案，只能发正面引导的贴文，并由外宣办指定专人审核把关后方可贴发，其余的贴文要全部清理。关于番禺太石村罢免村官事件，对论坛已有贴文一律全部删除。

2、有关“公务员工资制度改革”事，重申要求如下：网站只转发新华社通稿，未经许可，不得转载其他任何来源的消息。关于此事的文章不突出处理，不开新闻跟帖，不设专题，论坛也不讨论。

3、有关“新疆库尔勒市市长自杀”事，未经允许，网站一律不得报道。要加强管理，及时封堵和删除相关信息。
2005-9-28

不要报道和炒作“交通部长张春贤欢迎廉政监督的消息”相关报道和评论要立即删除。
2005-9-28

本周重点监控：网上针对北京“易索得”公司截留网民对齐齐哈尔“日军毒气弹案” 原告团捐款的相关信息。

本周重点监控：境内外网上有关重庆特钢工人罢工事件、辽宁鞍钢工人集会事件、四川理工学院学生抗议事件、福州霍乱疫情的信息。
有关鞍钢工人聚集事网上一律不得报道，及时封堵和删除相关信息。
2005-9-26

1、禁止探讨有关十七大（第十七届全国人民代表大会）；注：不论是网友自发讨论还是转载新闻媒体的报道，一律删除。

2、有关境外报道我国出现任何传染病疫情的内容一律删除。注：不论境外境内，所有媒体关于传染病疫情（以往众所周知得不包含在内，如非典等）的新报道一律先删除，事后听通知。
2005-9-25

有关浙江临海兴建豪华校舍之事一律不报道！
2005-9-22

25日新华社将发布关于“网站清理整顿的通稿”，不要转发，不要议论。有关此内容发现一律删除！
2005-9-20

近日一河南人在王府井劫持出租车杀害司机撞伤几人之事，一律暂不报道。
2005-9-10

1.不再报道关于北大学生柳剑锋出走之事。已有内容撤除，论坛不讨论。

2.新华社对外稿关于中国天主教负责人答记者问一律不得转载。
2005-9-2

监管时如遇《山东临沂计划生育调查手记》一文立即删除！

These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on November 11, 2012 (here).

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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