Although the high profile Chinese artist Ai Weiwei finally resurfaced after more than 11 weeks in detention on 21 June, many lesser known figures are still languishing in Chinese jails following a round up of activists earlier this year. Wang Lihong is a case in point — and an example of how injustice begets injustice in China’s dysfunctional legal system.

Wang Lihong has a long history of activism, including work on behalf of petitioners who have suffered violence at the hands of the authorities and campaigns for Chinese lawyers targeted because of their advocacy work. Like Ai Weiwei, Wang was rounded up in the weeks following anonymous online posts calling for a “Jasmine Revolution” in China earlier this year. She has now been in detention for 17 weeks. On 21 March she was charged with “inciting social unrest,” but on 22 April this charge was reduced to “disturbing public transportation in a crowd.”

Oiwan Lam recently posted details of Wang’s career and the campaign to release her at Global Voices Online, including a partial list of the causes with which she has been involved since 2008:

1. The police murder case of Yang Jia on July 1 2008. She visited Yang Jia’s mother and interviewed her and blogged about Yang Jia’s case.

2. Together with another blogger, Temple Tiger, she helped the homeless people around Tienanmen square.

3. The Deng Yujiao self defense murder case in May 2009. Wang Lihong travelled to Hubei to join the “surrounding gaze” flash mob in order to pressure the court for an open and fair ruling on Deng’s case.

4. On May 2009, Wang campaigned for a visit to petitioner, Yao Jing, who was seriously injured by local government officials from Linyi who tried to intercept her petition in Beijing. Together with a group of bloggers, Wang raised donation for Yao Jing’s hospital and lawyer expenses.

5. Campaigned for human rights lawyer Ni Yulan, who was prosecuted by Beijing authority soon after she was released from jail.

6. Participated in the “surrounding gaze” flash mob action in support of the three Fujian netizens who was accused by local authorities for defamation in their citizen reports about a suspected rape case in March and April 2010.

7. Celebrated the Nobel Prize award to Liu Xiaobo in October 2010. She was detained for two weeks and was under house arrest for several months.

8. In March 2011, she visited two activists in a Henan detention center, Wang Yi who was sentenced to one year labour education for writing a tweet and Tian Xi, an AIDS activist.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, AIDS, Beijing, Deng Yujiao, detention, Fujian, Henan, Hubei, jasmine revolution, Liu Xiaobo, Ni Yulan, Nobel Prize, Yang Jia
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From Wan Feng’s introduction:

When opening a website in China, there are three unavoidable things: Tencent, Tencent, and again, Tencent. Actually, before Tencent sets its eyes on you, there is a good chance you will be killed instantly, disappearing in a flash in the world of the Internet. Big Brother is watching you!

Because of this, Zheng Yun, founder of social media aggregation sites such as Wanju SR and Rtmere, cites his own experience and tells everyone how to avoid having their site shut down. He also talks about the habits of the management department. The advice is of vital importance. If you don’t understand this information, you’re racing toward a dead end!

From Zheng Yun’s tweets:

Many people ask why we don’t hire a few – albeit part-time – employees to delete sensitive posts and avoid site closure. I’ll give a complete answer here. Any large-scale site can guarantee the deleting of sensitive information within an hour after receiving a call, e-mail or instant message from the management department. This is easily done. There is no unmanageable problem that will result in (the Communist Party) shutting the site down (Shutting down a site is an incredibly severe punishment. The Party won’t take up such wrathful means. They will first warn you and make you rectify the problem. They are actually very patient).

Every site has a crucial black list of banned words. Sensitive information that is already known is automatically deleted or blocked. But this cannot guarantee that sudden incidents such as the “Shishou Mass Incident” or the “Deng Yujiao Incident” will quickly enter into the black list. Nevertheless, this is still considered okay. The authorities, after all, will actively call you and request that you thoroughly delete all related posts.

Every kind of authoritative department in the Party (excluding the police department) is quite patient, especially the News Office and the Internet Management Office. They try their best to help both sides save a little face. Whether it’s via e-mail or over the phone, government agencies are always polite. One must go a few rounds with them before they expose their fangs. Only when they are substantially challenged, or when the higher levels of the National Information Office or the Bureau of Communication Management are angered, will a site meet with instant death.

The lethal question lies with them asking you to exercise self-discipline. What’s self-discipline? Surpassing the Great Firewall and looking at all sorts of reactionary media, paying close attention to current affairs, especially hyped social incidents, which are instrumentally taken by the reactionary media to attack the Party. Once these are discovered, you must take control of your site and quickly delete the corresponding hot issues, topics and essays.

If you can’t delete these things before authorities give their command, you’ll be forgiven once or twice. After all, you need a learning curve. But if this continues you’ll be asked to join them for tea. If you have tea with them many times, you will be scrutinized and reported to higher levels. In the event of a big incident, if the authorities once again discover large quantities of sensitive material on your site – okay – your site will be closed (the plug will be pulled, your computers will be taken, your domain will be closed).

Many people, including journalists, wonder why these sites (even big sites) are instantly killed. Even they can’t say clearly why this happens. The Party’s online management system is quite mature. All levels report upward and there is an approval process. Before you are put before a firing squad, there are many who will work to dissuade them from doing this. Yet representing the Party’s managing skills is the fact that some things are no match for the thunderous fury of some leaders. When the command of a powerful leader comes down through the ranks, all processes disappear in a puff of smoke.

Some people think having the plug pulled is very serious but this is actually a moderate punishment. Because after you promptly delete the information (It’s best you are disconnected from other supporting servers to prevent not being able to delete the information remotely) and you inform the Internet data center, you can regain your Internet connection. Many stumble at the point because they either don’t know what to delete or they don’t know how to delete it (not being able to control information remotely equals an inability to reconnect).

We delete posts promptly and aren’t bad at inspecting and correcting ourselves. Yet we have still been charged with very serious allegations. In 2009, Wanju SR aggregated on Twitter some information concerning the Ministry of Truth blocking someone’s letter. It became a hotly debated and rapidly spreading topic. It was picked up by the Communication Management Bureau and we were accused of divulging national secrets. A fax we received requested a stringent investigation. Under these allegations there is no need for a process. Most sites are thoroughly closed.

For sites that wanted to be self-disciplined, that wanted to climb the Great Firewall and see the world, it seems there were none of these clearly defined requirements in 2007 and 2008. At that time we had a list of sensitive words, deleted posts promptly and on a sensitive occasion we closed our interactive functions and would be okay. On a few days before June 4, 2009, it seems that the management department implemented this way of thinking and spread it to every major site in Beijing through a variety of meetings.

One gesture of patience from the management department is that if you tell them you are on the road when you answer a call about deleting a post, and that there is no way of deleting it within the hour, they will cordially confirm when you will be able to delete it. They don’t hang up the phone and notify you that they will pull the plug. Even when the police come to get information on people posting information, all one needs to do is tell them that this is an aggregation site and there is no way to provide IP addresses. They will understand and won’t get violent.

Those from the management department who work on the frontline aren’t terribly interested in popular transmission and monitoring sites like rtmeme because all they need to do is monitoring a couple hundred twitter accounts. Every data flow worth looking at must flow through these key points. I bet they aren’t willing to expand their own monitoring capacity. If they did they would be more work for themselves. Monitoring a set list of people is a kind of daily work easily accomplished.

© Don Weinland for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Yujiao, drinking tea, Great Firewall, June 4th, Ministry of Truth, Shishou, tencent, Twitter
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A million Deng Yujiaos

Badong is a county in the western part of Hubei, dissected from west to east by two of the three gorges. It is rich in history, quite poor in land quality and resources, and undergoing a massive change due to the gigantic Three Gorges Dam that flooded part of the county.

It was here at the county seat, a town of about 50,000 people resting on steep slopes above the Yangze, that a young waitress was sexually attacked on the night of May 10th last year. She defended herself from the rapist, who happened to be a communist party official, stabbing him to death in the course of their struggle. The woman’s name was Deng Yujiao, a name that is now a symbol to many in China. She was, however, a real woman working at a real hotel in this very real town. That hotel no longer exists and Deng Yujiao left Badong, has reportedly changed her name and hopefully put this terrible trauma behind her. There are many other Dengs, and these are the stories of just two of them, who were never brave or desperate enough to stab anyone. There is nothing special about them, nothing unusual about their stories: just the kind of things that happen everyday in Badong – and everywhere else. Obviously, the names used here are not their real names.

Deng Yufei is 20 years old and has been working at a hotel in Badong for almost two years, cleaning rooms and making 700 yuan a month. She is originally from a village that was relocated because of the Three Gorges Dam. “Before, my parents could make a living from the crops they were growing, but now they depend on my help,” she explains. So at about seventeen she left her home and moved to Badong town, working first as a waitress and then as a maid in this hotel. She admires Deng Yujiao. “She was in a very difficult situation and she was very brave. I don’t know what I would do if it happened to me, I have been lucky so far.”

It’s an interesting use of the term. She goes on to describe her fabulous luck. “I haven’t been attacked, ever. Of course, guests try to touch me sometimes. The other day a businessman who stayed in that room there came behind me when I was cleaning the bathroom. He hugged me and put his hands under my shirt, but I got away. The first time it happened I told my supervisor and she gave me some advice how to avoid men like this: Try to get to cleaning the room when they’re not in, do everything real fast, don’t look at them, and leave quickly if they try to touch you. She also said that if I really get trapped, I should try and satisfy the man with a hand job. It’s safer this way. I only had to do that once. I am luckier than other girls.”

One of the other girls is Deng Yulan, who works in the same hotel. A few months ago, long after Deng Yujiao was released and left Badong, Deng Yulan was called to bring some food and drinks to a room one night. The guests were two men from another province, she doesn’t know from where exactly. When she put the tray down one of them ordered her to come nearer, saying he wanted “a special.” She turned to leave the room but he stopped her. “I don’t know what happened next. I only remember hands touching me. They were drunk and they couldn’t stop laughing. They shouted at me, “He cha, he cha” (drink tea), they slapped my face with their things. Then I was on the other side of the door. My face was dirty but I still had clothes on, and they threw a wad of bills on the floor near me. There was 1000 Yuan there. I sent the money to my mom and told her I got a bonus because we had to work extra hours. She was very happy: the money was used to pay my brother’s school fees. I haven’t told anyone except my friend (the other hotel worker). My mom would have never understood this. The supervisor said before to come to her if something happens so she can give you a (morning after) pill or help otherwise, but I didn’t need the pill and the people left town the next day, so what can be done? I am not Deng Yujiao.” She now takes classes in English and typing in her spare time, hoping to land a higher paying job as a secretary.

[In June 2009, students staged a protest in Beijing with signs reading, "Anyone could become Deng Yujiao."]

*Rachel’s self-introduction:

I came to China for three months, with a plan to see a bit of Tibet and Sichuan and to get a taste of rural life in this country before I settled down back home with a job at a law firm. Nearly eight years later, I am still in China, and still as fascinated with its rural areas.

After working as a correspondent in Beijing for two years, in July 2010 I have embarked on what I hope will be a six month journey through the Chinese countryside — listening, watching and telling stories from farmers’ lives. Much has been and is still being written about the “Chinese miracle” (or dystopia, depends on your point of view) and this will only be my added two cents. China, it is often said, has more than 400 million Internet users and hundreds of millions of new urban residents, who are changing the face of the country. It is less often noted that China also has another billion people who have not yet been fully included in these new economic and social changes. The following, if you will, are some fragments from the story of the other billion.

My personal blog is Bendilaowai.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Yujiao, Hubei, other billion, sexual harassment, women
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“With a wave of my hand, tens of millions of posts about the Deng Yujiao incident were all deleted.” (??????????????????? ???”

–  Li Baozhu (???) speaking at Peking University

Li Baozhu is currently the director of the Propaganda and Education Supervision Office of the the Politics and Law Committee of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. He has worked in the Political and Law Committee since 1992. He also worked in the Bureau of Theory of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party from 1985 to 1992. He received Master’s (1985) and Bachelor’s degrees from the Department of History of Peking University.

The quote above is from Director Li’s recent public lecture at Peking University, and has been one of the hottest micro-blog posts in Chinese cyberspace since yesterday.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Yujiao, Internet control, Li Baozhu, notable quotes
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Chinese media analysts say the reaction was a sign of a slow boil in the media over tighter government restraints. While the authorities have effectively reined in the media in the last year, Chang Ping, a prominent media commentator, said the Internet had vastly complicated their task.

“When the government tries to contain something, it could achieve the opposite result, spurring people on instead of putting people off,” he said. Mr. Chang, who was forced out as deputy editor of Southern Metropolis Weekly in 2008 for challenging censorship, said the controversy had given journalists “a chance to vent all their anger and frustrations.”

The governor’s outburst happened at a moment when many journalists are chafing under the incessant orders and regulations of state censors. Some liberal members of the media are agitating for more freedom, even as the government bolsters state-controlled news agencies and expands its control over mass communication, from cellphone messages to individual Web sites.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chang Ping, Deng Yujiao, journalists, Liu Hongzhong, press freedom
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Then the workers began trying to clear a path for the governor to leave. One reporter from Beijing Times hurriedly asked: Governor, what are your thoughts on Deng Yujiao? Li Hongzhong became enraged, and his face went cloudy in 0.1 seconds flat as he scowled at this reporter. He looked at the pen recorder and the hands holding it and, moving subtly but firmly, grabbed hold of them. He then stormed out into the hall. At the main door, Li stopped and asked furiously of this reporter, “which media are you from?” “I’m from People’s Daily” (note: Beijing Times is a commercial paper affiliate of People’s Daily). “And you’re a Party paper! This isn’t how a Party paper handles opinion guidance! I’m going to your publisher!!” And then without looking back, Li Hongzhong went to the elevator and back to his room. The reporters standing around looked on, dumbfounded. Reportedly, at this time, this female reporter began to tear up, feeling hurt.

Listen to an audio recording of the exchange here. Now, several Chinese media have publicly called on Li to apologize to the reporter, identified as Liu Jie of the Beijing Times, an offshoot of the People’s Daily.

Li Hongzhong’s story was the perfect storm for netizens. “Hongzhong Grabbing the Recorder” became a new hot online expression. Here are some samples of sarcastic comments from Chinese Twitterers, at the tag #lihongzhong:

* Sony Advertisement: the recorder even Chinese governors want to grab. (Jie Liu’s pen was a Sony.)

* Grabbing a recorder should be his staff’s job. This governor did it himself, so down to earth. Good official!.

* Let my three-year-old daughter explain this to you: “If one take something after the owner agrees, that is called borrowing; if the owner did not agree and one takes it in front of the owner, it’s called grabbing; if one takes it behind the back of owner without agreement, it’s called stealing.”

“Watch out, the governor will come… No recording allowed!”:

T-shirt for women reporters at the “two sessions”: “Please don’t grab my recorder; you can talk to my boss”:

From Cartoonist Guaiguai’s BlogTD website: “This ‘Two Sessions’ recorder is stealing-, grabbing- and governor-proof, perfect for you female reporters…”

The following cartoon is from Sohu Community:

Caijing’s website published at least three articles on this topic, one titled: “Li Hongzhong Grabs Female Reporter’s Recorder,” and an editorial titled, “Governor Li, Please Publicly Apologize.” Southern Metropolis Daily, Times Weekly (????), New Daily (???), Youth Times (????), and Yancheng Evening News (????) all published editorials as well. Two former high government officials, Zhou Ruijin (???), the former deputy editor-in-chief of People’s Daily under Jiang Zemin, and Zhong Peizhang, in his 80s, former director of the News Bureau of Central Propaganda Department, wrote commentaries on the issue for Caijing. Those former senior officials have strong ties with Chinese media, and some of them have become very outspoken on various topics after they left their official positions.

The Global Times reports that Li refuses to apologize:

“We thought she might not be a reporter, so we took away her recorder to check,” he said.

In response, Li allegedly snapped her tape recorder and one of his followers grabbed the identification card around her neck and inspected it.

…In response to the Internet comments, Li said the reporter is now free to talk to him if she is unhappy about the incident. He said there is no need to raise the incident all over the Internet.

As of Thursday, more than 1,200 comments about Li’s explanation appeared on a sohu.com forum.

See also ESWN’s translation of an interview with Li.

Then today, an official who oversees Chinese media emphasized that Chinese journalists should undergo training in Marxist theory. From the Guardian:

Li Dongdong, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, told the South China Morning Post that some mainland reporters were giving Chinese journalism a bad name because they were not properly trained.

Under communist theories of journalism, media should support the leadership rather than operate as a watchdog.

The initiative seems to be aimed at mainland journalists only.

Chinese officials already routinely censor journalists, but Chinese media has become less restricted in recent years as they have gained more revenue from independent sources via advertising.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Yujiao, Li Hongzhong, press freedom
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If the lawyers learned the truth from Deng Yujiao and obtained the evidence quietly instead of running crying to the media; if the netizens actually spent the effort trying to supervise the authorities instead of making loud noises only; if the media actually went back to the facts of the story instead of taking on the role of saviors themselves; if the government chose to be frank, fair and transparent instead of blocking and intercepting information … then this very simple criminal case would not have rubbed the nerves of all of China.

It is cruel to drag Deng Yujiao out again. This is a family dormitory building that is at least 10 years old. Even the neighbors don’t know who she is. The stairwell is pasted with small advertising posters. The people here live small and trivial lives. Two nights before Christmas Eve at around 7pm, she opened the door. The light-sensitive lamp illuminated the stairwell.

“I am not Deng Yujiao.” She turned her face towards the wall and used her hair and hand to shield herself like a frightened small animal who is afraid of her own name.

From early summer through the rest of the year, this name represented the completely opposite images of frailty and strength. On the Chinese Internet, it created reverberations.

Finally, she made a silent admission. We walked down two streets as she chatted about her new job where everybody is treating her well. She is living in a television-less room. She has a job. She lives in a new environment. Her life has turned over to a new page. Even her name has been changed. Deng Yujiao said that she was going to pick up her new identity card on this evening.

© Paulina Hartono for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Yujiao, Southern Metropolis News
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This year – after a period of relatively relaxed controls – the bodies who censor information and culture have come back with a vengeance. There are several reasons: 2009 has seen a number of “sensitive” anniversaries, including the 4 May student uprisings of 1919, the 1959 Tibetan uprising, and Tiananmen Square in 1989. Although Tibet has been relatively calm this year, the riots in Urumqi in July added greatly to the tense atmosphere in Beijing. Government nervousness about the internet was exacerbated by hype in the western press about Twitter bringing democracy to Iran. Another factor is the financial crisis, which has made mass unrest more likely.

Despite the ongoing and harsh repression of anyone who sets up as a dissident or suggests that the Communist party is illegitimate, there is more anti-establishment chatter on the Chinese internet than ever. China has a new but firmly established culture of citizens using the net to air their grievances with local authorities. This year’s most prominent example was the case of the young female hotel employee Deng Yujiao, where net activism was the decisive factor in saving her from a murder charge, when she was widely believed to have acted in self-defence against an attempted rape. Such cases of online activism have made the government even more wary of the power of the net.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Yujiao, Internet control, online activism
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In recent years, the government has attempted to tackle the gender problem. Last year, for example, it launched a high-profile campaign against domestic violence, and in 2005 it introduced new laws against sexual harassment, though the definition remains vague.

Perhaps more significantly, some Chinese citizens are taking matters into their own hands. In a number of big cities, women-run nongovernmental organizations now provide training and information to migrants to help them avoid falling into the trap of prostitution. The Internet has also helped Chinese women to organize. “It’s had a big impact in filling in the gaps—you can find information about discrimination,” says Sun. Internet activism has been particularly noticeable in recent months: much of the publicity surrounding the case of the Kunming schoolgirls was generated by the blog posts of Wu Hongfei, a well-known rock singer and journalist. And the truth about Deng Yujiao, the waitress who stabbed a Hubei official to death, was revealed only after Wu Gan, another blogger, visited her in the hospital after her arrest—and found her strapped to a bed. His photos, posted online, helped spark public outrage.

These episodes may be a sign that, as Chinese society becomes more affluent and better educated, concern about the rights of women is increasing. “The young generation who’ve grown up in the cities with a good education have much more of a sense of individual legal rights,” says Jiang of ECNU. Wu, who also tried to help the families involved in the Kunming case, emphasizes, “If society doesn’t provide a fair environment and guarantee legal safeguards, then anyone can become a victim.” That thinking was on full display during the Deng case, when activists in Beijing and Wuhan staged street demonstrations in which bound and gagged women carried placards that asked, who is the next deng yujiao?

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Deng Yujiao, Gender discrimination, women, women's rights
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I was a student at Beijing University at the time. My generation and the generation before us had grown up with censorship; there were severe punishments for voicing dissent. My parents were sent to a labour camp during the Cultural Revolution for being intellectuals. When I was 14 years old, I decided that I wanted to become a writer. My mother, who was a professor of Chinese literature, forbade it because writing was one of the most dangerous professions.

The history of modern China has been punctuated by bursts of rebellion followed by bloody crackdown. Throughout the history of the Chinese Communist Party not only has it been dangerous for the protesters, but also the protests have never produced any real impact.

The internet has changed this. The web gave the Chinese people a platform to express their opinions and to have their cases heard, and it is making a difference. The attention given to the case of a young woman working in a public bathhouse in a remote area of China is a good illustration of this.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1989 protests, Deng Yujiao, Internet activism, online public opinion
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