Protesters in Kunming. View more photos from today’s events at CDT Chinese. (@明明悠阳)

Central Propaganda Department: Without exception, do not republish, report, or comment on the assembly of the masses in Kunming to protest the construction of a PetroChina oil refinery.

中宣部：对昆明群众反对中石油云南炼油项目聚集一事，一律不转不报不评。

State Internet Information Office: All websites are asked to remove text, images, and video related to the protest of over 1,000 people in Kunming city center against the Anning PX construction plan. Interactive platforms must strictly monitor activity. (May 16, 2013)

网信办：请各网站删除关于昆明上千市民聚集市中心抗议安宁PX项目的文字、图片、视频等相关信息。互动环节要严格把关。

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.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, environmental protests, Internet censorship, Kunming, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, protests, Yunnan
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Protesters in Beijing yesterday want justice for Yuan Liya, who died on the morning of May 3. (via FreeWeibo)

Beijing Internet Supervision Office: Urgent Notice: Websites which have already posted news about the incident of the young Anhui woman who jumped from the Jingwen shopping center to her death must turn down the heat on coverage. You are not permitted to put the story on the homepage or make it the lead story. Websites which have not yet posted the story may only repost Peaceful Beijing [Beijing Public Security Bureau] weibo. Other information or images related to the incident must be completely erased. Please rigorously implement these work requests. (May 8, 2013)

北京市网监：紧急通知：关于安徽籍女青年京温商城坠楼一事，已发布新闻的网站，必须降低热度，不允许出现在首页及新闻头条。未发新闻的网站，只能转发平安北京的微博。其它关于此事的信息和图片全部清理，请各网站严格落实工作要求。

Hundreds protested in Beijing yesterday to call for a thorough investigation into the May 3 death of 22-year-old Anhui migrant Yuan Liya. The authorities have said Yuan committed suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of Jingwen shopping center, where she worked a late night shift, but rumors spread online that she was raped by mall security guards and thrown from the building. Yuan’s family is pushing to have closed circuit video of the incident released.

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.

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Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, protests, Yuan Liya
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“No Kunming PX.” (via FreeWeibo)

The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.

Central Propaganda Department: With regards to the China National Petroleum Corp. oil refinery planned for Anning, Yunnan Province, report in strict accordance with Xinhua wire copy or authoritative information formally issued by the local government in the region. Do not speculate, do not comment, and do not send reports to investigate. (May 8, 2013)

中宣部：对云南安宁中石油炼油项目相关问题，严格按新华社通稿，或当地政府正式发布的权威消息报道，不炒作、不评论，不派记者到当地采访。

On Saturday, residents of Kunming, the capital of southwestern Yunnan Province, protested construction of an oil refinery in nearby Anning. The plant would process the hazardous chemical p-Xylene (PX). While the protests were peaceful and unhindered by the police, the future of the project remains uncertain.

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.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, environmental protests, Kunming PX, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, protests, PX
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Central Propaganda Department: With regards to the assembly of some non-residents in front of Jingwen Market in Fengtai District, Beijing because a young Anhui woman jumped to her death, and related issues: report in strict accordance with wire copy from the relevant departments; shut down website comment sections; and without exception, do not use information from any other sources in your reporting.

We reiterate the spirit of notifications concerning the case of Zhu Ling’s thallium poisoning. Please comply with orders. (May 8, 2013)

中宣部：有关5月8日北京部分外来人员因一名安徽籍女青年坠楼在丰台区京温商场门前聚集一事及相关问题，要严格按有关部门通稿刊播，网站关闭评论，一律不采用其他渠道的信息进行报导。

再次重申关于朱令铊中毒案通知精神，请务必遵照执行。

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.

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Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Truth, petitions, propaganda, protests, Yuan Liya, Zhu Ling
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Yuan Liya (center) “jumped” to her death on May 3. (Weibo)

Around 4 a.m. on May 3, young Anhui migrant Yuan Liya fell to her death from the fourth floor of the Jingwen Wholesale Market in Beijing, where she worked. The Beijing authorities insist that she committed suicide and have refused requests by Yuan’s boyfriend and family to make public the Jingwen closed-circuit video of her fall.

This morning, migrants from Yuan’s home town protested in central Beijing, triggering a massive police presence. Photos of riot police on the streets and police helicopters circling the protesters have circulated on Weibo. Footage of the demonstration is available, for now, on Tencent [zh]. Read more about Yuan’s case and the protest from CDT Chinese [zh].

• Jing+Wen (京+温): For Jingwen Wholesale Market.
• Yuan Liya (袁利亚)
• Dahongmen (大红门): Yuan’s family have brought their case to the Dahongmen Market police station.
• South Third Ring [Road] (南三环): Location of Jingwen.
• Muxiyuan (木樨园): Street blocked by police.
• helicopter (直升机)

Update: More images from the protest and screenshots of propaganda directives have been added to the photo gallery below.

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

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Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, censorship, Internet censorship, migrant workers, Ministry of Truth, protests, Sensitive Words Series, weibo, Yuan Liya
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At 2:15pm protesters rolled out another long banner, this time white with black letters. The police, who earlier voiced that the red banner [reading "Anning oil refinery, don’t put our home into environmental hell!"] was too provocative, sent a small troop to inspect the white banner which read “Give me back beautiful Kunming! We want to survive! We want to be healthy! PX project, get out of Kunming!” Protesters rushed to engage with the police, asking whether or not the banner passed muster. With a supportive and encouraging nod from a police captain, the crowd burst into applause and paraded the banner around the square. […]

[…] Some media outlets reported cell phone service disruption at the protest zone. I personally did not experience this. No organization or local NGO announced themselves as the protest organizer and no names of organizations have been named by media outlets. At the same time, media reports have given very little credit to the protesters for maintaining civility (not a guarantee for Chinese demonstrations) and to the police force for patiently allowing (and thus softly promoting the demonstration). After all, Kunming’s security forces have to breathe the city’s air just the same as anyone.

Protesters are awaiting public announcement from the city or provincial government on the status of the PX plant. They are calling for greater transparency in the approval process and disclosure of the project’s environmental assessment. Until these results are delivered, this issue is likely to gain momentum among Kunming’s citizens making the 5/4 protest the first of many. […]

In contrast with the Kunming demonstration, planned protests in Chengdu on the same day were met with a obstructive tactics such as a “weekend-long earthquake drill” and—as NPR’s Louisa Lim reported—a rescheduled weekend:

The tentacles of the stability-maintenance machine go deep, and all of them swung into action in Chengdu. A woman who’d forwarded a message about the protest on social media was forced to apologize on television earlier in the week. At least 10 dissidents were put under house arrest or forced to “go on holiday,” according to a local human rights website. Meanwhile, employees at state-run work units were warned that they’d be sacked if they protested.

Then there was an enormous leafleting campaign. Households received letters from the government calling for “everyone to stand firm and not believe rumors, and not participate [in protests] in order to prevent people with other motives from seizing this opportunity to create turmoil.” The letters had the unintended effect of bringing the Pengzhou plant to the attention of those who hadn’t already heard about it, creating an even greater groundswell of suppressed discontent.

[…] Since any attempt to protest would clearly have been unwise, some citizens protested in silence by wearing facemasks. Given the levels of pollution, however, this was ineffective. Others commented wryly that the police show of force represented a new “Chengdu model” of dissent, where the actual marching had been outsourced to the security forces.

An editorial in the state-owned Global Times argued that heavy industry projects are economically necessary, but that trying to brush public concerns aside is the wrong approach:

China’s economic development is inseparable from the development of heavy chemical projects. However, the reality is that residents do not want to pay for China’s overall situation at the price of their living environment.

Questions over the development of heavy chemical projects are mainly discussed by local governments and enterprises. Governments have good intentions, with the goals of developing the economy and creating employment, while the public focuses on environmental situation. It has become a stalemate.

To break through this deadlock, local governments should make ordinary people’s environmental anxieties their first concern. They should represent ordinary people’s ecological and comprehensive interests and strive for these interests. Problems will be solved in a much more orderly and rational manner if governments are trusted by public in this regard.

[…] Hanging on to outdated social governance approaches will only make things worse. There is always a way out for heavy chemical projects. Current problems come from the methods of dealing with them.

Also at Global Times, a report on the protests by Chang Meng and Duan Wuning stressed the importance of timely transparency surrounding industrial projects:

“PX is a basic petrochemical raw material and is safe if proper protocols are followed. People are scared because there is a lack of access to information or participation in the projects,” Jin Yong, a leading petrochemical expert at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times.

[…] Information disclosure for both projects was opaque and came out late under public pressure.

“We met with the project committee in April, which was the first public communication event after the construction for two years,” a staffer of Green Kunming, a local environmental NGO, told the Global Times.

“Public rights to information access, participation in environmental policies and judicial remedies are key to solving these situations and preventing the EIA from being manipulated by developers and officials,” Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times.

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Post tags: Chengdu, Chengdu PX, economic development, environmental protests, Kunming, Kunming PX, Ma Jun, protests, PX, Sichuan, stability maintenance, transparency, Yunnan
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The “Nine Gentlemen”: Nine activists were arrested last week after demanding that public servants disclose their financial assets, including Zhao Changqing and human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi. Another protester, Li Wei, is missing, as activist Hu Jia explains:

@hu_jia: Li Wei is missing. No official documentation of his arrest has been received, as opposed to the other nine. RT @tengbiao: Yuan Dong, Zhang Baocheng, Ma Xinli, Hou Xin, Zhao Changqing, Ding Jiaxi, Wang Yonghong, Sun Hanhui, Li Wei, and Qi Yueying. However you count it, there are 10. The last two must have been detained as criminals. Were others arrested for calling for financial disclosure? #ninegentlemenoffinancialdisclosure

李蔚失踪，没有接到刑事拘留的法律文书。而其他九位都有。RT@tengbiao 袁冬、张宝成、马新立、候欣、赵常青、丁家喜、王永红、孙含会、李蔚、齐月英。怎麼算都是10個啊。後兩位應該也確定是被刑事拘留了。不知道還有沒有其他因為呼籲財產公示被刑拘的？#财产公示九君子

— Hu Jia 胡佳 (@hu_jia) April 28, 2013

• financial disclosure+nine gentlemen (财产公示+九君子)
• Zhao Changqing (赵长青)
• Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜)

Yuan Dong, one of the “nine gentlemen” arrested after publicly calling on officials to disclose their financial assets. (@azurefoxlee)

“Terrorist” Attack in Xinjiang: 21 died last week in clashes between the police and ethnic Uyghurs in Kashgar, a prefecture-level town which borders Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Chinese authorities and have accused the U.S. of a double standard for refusing to call this a “terrorist act.”

• Selibuya (色力布亚): The town in Kashgar Prefecture where the officers were killed.
• World Uyghur Congress (世维会)

Other:

• 25th anniversary (25周年): It is unclear why this is blocked. Reader suggestions are welcome.

Additionally, the following search terms have been blocked as of April 27.

Chengdu Environmental Protest: Chengdu netizens have objected to the construction of a petrochemical plant planned for Pengzhou, a town within the city limits. A number of netizens have suggested demonstrating against the project on May 4th, Youth Day, on Jiuyan Bridge, the site of May 4, 2008 protests against a p-Xylene (PX) plant in Pengzhou. On Weibo, the Chengdu authorities announced that they had arrested those calling for the demonstration, which they condemned as “inciting illegal assembly.”

• Chengdu PX project (成都PX项目)
• May 4th+Jiuyan Bridge+take a walk (5月4日+九眼桥+散步)
• Pengzhou+PX (彭州+PX)
• Pengzhou+petrochemicals (彭州+石化): retested

Other:

• Real Estate Party (地产党): A reference to the property owned by Party officials, both at home and abroad.

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words posts (April 27 and April 29).

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Post tags: censorship, Chengdu, Chengdu PX, Ding Jiaxi, environmental protests, financial disclosure, Internet censorship, Ministry of Truth, protests, PX, Sensitive Words Series, Uyghurs, weibo, Xinjiang, Zhao Changqing
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According to Shanghaiist, the incident reported by @博闻华夏 below has already ended. The official stripped by protesters has been identified as Chen Chen, Tong’an District Party Committee Secretary.

The following weibo, which has been deleted, was selected by CDT Chinese editors from FreeWeibo.

【First Edition】SWAT Clear-out Triggers Riots in Pantu, Xiamen; Police Cars Smashed and Female Official Stripped (34 Photos)

The villagers of Pantu, a village in the Tong’an District of Xiamen, Fujian Province, have been holding a sit-in for over a month to protest the sale of land by village heads. Conflicts have broken out on several occasions. At 4 a.m. on April 25, 2013, several hundred armed policemen cleared out the protestors. They took down banners and tents, threw gasoline on it all, and lit it on fire, while also arresting rights-defending villagers. Later that morning, thousands of villagers gathered in Tongji Road to confront the police. Many villagers were injured, while protesters smashed police vehicles and and punctured their tires. A female official was stripped naked, and a number of police officers were injured. The authorities quickly sent 1,000 policemen for reinforcement. The incident is still in progress.

【首发】厦门潘涂特警清场引发骚乱 警车被砸女官员被脱光（34图）

 福建省厦门市同安区潘涂村，村民因土地被村官变卖，已持续静坐维权月余，其间爆发多次冲突。2013年4月25日凌晨4点，数百武警、特警清场。拆除维权横幅、帐篷，用汽油焚烧一切物品，抓捕维权村民。上午，数千村民陆续聚集同集路与武警、特警对峙，双方爆发冲突，多名村民被打伤，多辆警车被砸或被扎胎放气，一名女官员被村民扒光衣服，数名警察受伤。当局急调千警增援，目前事件仍在发展中。

April 25, 2013 at 6:55 p.m.

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Mengyu Dong.

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Post tags: censorship, Internet censorship, land protests, Ministry of Truth, Pantu, protests, River Crab Archive, weibo, xiamen
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Reuters visited Wukan six times over the last year-and-a-half, chronicling the early protests, the uprising, its eventual triumph and now its disillusionment.

The events in Wukan focused keen attention in Beijing over a problem the central government had long underplayed – rampant land seizures across China. The government is drafting revised land management legislation for the annual parliament session in March that would require farmers – an estimated 650 million of them in China – to be adequately compensated and relocated before officials can expropriate any land.

But Wukan’s failure to overcome entrenched corruption shows how difficult it is for grassroots protest to spur lasting change in China. Towering above Wukan is a vast local, regional and national edifice of Party control and vested interests. Indeed, even the Xi administration’s push to overhaul the land seizure law faces opposition from developers, businesses and local governments that depend on property sales.

“For Wukan, amongst all the villages in China, to be able to rise up and protect their interests, then to conduct a democratic election and to become a kind of experimental ground, is significant,” said Peng Peng, a senior researcher with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences. But the inexperience of the new leaders and their halting progress over the land issues has exposed the teething problems of nurturing village democracy in China, he added. “There can’t just be democracy, there needs to be solid administration, too.”

Resentment has simmered among Wukan villagers at their leaders’ inability to secure the return of their land, but the Financial Times reports that deputy village chief Yang Semao believes critical villagers “are not reasonable:”

In its year in office, the committee has succeeded in returning 200 hectares of land sold off by the previous village chief, Mr Yang says. But many villagers are still determined to seize property for which the deeds were transferred to factory owners and businessmen several years ago.

Confronted with persistent criticism – in painful contrast to the adulation they once enjoyed of a once remarkably united village – Mr Lin and many committee members have contemplated resigning.

“I am afraid of seeing people, afraid of hearing my doorbell ring,” Mr Lin told a Shanghai television station last month. “Why? Because whatever I do or say now, people are able to find a way to blame me.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: democracy, land grabs, local politics, mass incidents, political reform, protests, Wukan
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“We are not satisfied,” said one villager. “We removed corrupt officials to get our land back, but have received nothing, and the new village committee has not given us an explanation.”

[...]Lin Zuluan , 69, was elected head of the village committee. But now he says that, while democratic governance was worth trying, he regrets taking part in the campaign, because villagers have unrealistic expectations of their leaders.

“I am old,” Lin said. “I can’t stand the pressure and fulfil all of their expectations. I’ve gained nothing from the whole campaign; I should not have taken part in it. Democracy is something that all people should pursue, but the implementation of it should be gradual, and there should be an environment that is conducive to it. We can’t let it happen overnight.”

Lin also said the villagers were not clear about their rights and had raised “unreasonable” demands, such as asking the committee to publicly release every detail of contracts it signs.

For more on Wukan, land-grabs, or democratic reform, see prior CDT coverage.

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Post tags: democracy, land grabs, local politics, mass incidents, political reform, protests, Wukan
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散步 (sànbù): take a walk

“Walking” in central Beijing, February 2011. (Jordan Pouille)

Along with “sightseeing,” “taking a walk” is a new form of resistance in China. Striking is difficult, applications for protests are routinely denied, and petitioning the government often brings dire consequences. Workers and citizens have adopted new methods that tread the fine line of legality. In February 2011, an online source attempted to stage a “jasmine revolution” by organizing groups to “walk” in the central Beijing shopping district of Wangfujing.

Yu Jianrong, a researcher at China’s Academy of Social Science, gives a vivid description of this method:

Workers’ methods of resistance include petitioning higher levels of government, sit-ins, strikes, demonstrations, and blocking traffic. Two extremely important recent methods of resistance include “taking a walk” and “going sightseeing.” [PowerPoint slide] Take a look, these are workers from Baoding “taking a walk” to Beijing on April 3, 2009. It is 137 kilometers from Baoding to Beijing. When I learned the news [of the workers’ “walk”] and rushed over, they were almost at the Xushui County toll station. At the time Beijing was very tense; Shijiazhuang was very tense; Baoding was very tense. A lot of people and workers were sent to negotiate; they said, “You can’t go to Beijing like this.” The workers answered by saying, “Is there a problem with us going to Beijing to go sightseeing? There’s nothing wrong with it. What law says we can’t go to Beijing to do some sightseeing?” Those [sent to] persuade them said, “You can’t all of you go to Beijing to go sightseeing.” The workers immediately responded, “And what law exactly says that this many people can’t go to Beijing to do some sightseeing?” Those sent to persuade them against going insisted, “In any event, you can’t all walk to Beijing to go sightseeing like this.” The workers said, “We don’t have any money, why can’t we walk to Beijing?” The situation was extremely tense. Finally, the Baoding City [government] had no choice but to state right there to the workers, “We’ll resolve all your problems.” The workers said, “We don’t have any problems. Our only problem is a sightseeing problem. Look for yourselves, we haven’t brought materials to petition the government, we’re not shouting slogans, we don’t have any problems, we’re not petitioning the government, we’re not lodging complaints. We are going sightseeing.” In the end, their actions at the scene caused their company’s chairman of the board to be taken away [by the police]. Only then did they return.

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Post tags: jasmine revolution, protests, word of the week, Yu Jianrong
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They have occupied factories and taken to the streets. But Chinese workers chose a more unusual form of protest when they highlighted their unpaid wages by dancing Gangnam Style outside the nightclub they had built.

The construction workers from Wuhan said they had concluded it was the only way to draw attention to their problems.

[...]The leader of the dancers, who gave his name only as Mr Lu, told the Wuhan Evening News that in total 40 workers were owed 233,000 yuan (£23,300).

“There have been many creative protests over the last few years. Younger workers in particular are very media-savvy and clued-in,” said Geoff Crothall of the Hong-Kong-based China Labour Bulletin.

For a picture of the PSY-inspired protest, see Chinese-language coverage.

As workers in Wuhan dance Gangnam Style, LinkAsia relays video footage from a CCTV broadcast showing more drastic methods of protest over unpaid wages, which in more than one case included suicide:

ChinaSMACK has translated Chinese news coverage and subsequent netizen commentary on the migrant worker in Guangzhou who detonated a suicide bomb while demanding his wages:

At 3:53pm this afternoon [January 18], an explosion happened in an apartment building in Guangzhou’s Tianhebei Road Dushi Huating Community. Upon report, Guangzhou Police quickly dispatched police officers and firefighters to the scene to handle the situation, evacuate the surrounding people, and immediately take the injured to the hospital for emergency treatment.

According to the preliminary investigation by the police, in the afternoon, a man arrived at a company in Tianhebei Road Dushi Huating Community to ask for his salary, then detonated the explosive strapped to his body. The man died of his severe injuries. At present, this incident has already caused 1 death and 7 wounded. Police are currently investigating this incident.[...]

Meanwhile, China Daily reports on a ruling by the Supreme People’s Court that may work to help migrants receive their due compensation:

A judicial interpretation that went into effect on Wednesday aims to defend migrant workers by preventing their employers from defaulting on their wages.

A judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), China’s top court, clearly defines specific applicable situations in which employers who default on wages can be sentenced to prison for up to seven years.

A 2011 amendment to the Criminal Law classifies failure to pay laborers properly as a crime, specifying a prison sentence of three to seven years for employers whose failure to pay their employees results in “serious consequences.”

However, the “serious consequences” are not specified in the law.

[...]The payments mentioned in the interpretation refer not only to employee wages, but also to bonuses and overtime pay.

However, employers can have their penalties relieved or be exempted from punishment entirely if they render payments to their employees before being prosecuted, the interpretation said.

The interpretation is hoped to discourage wage defaults, especially those that impact migrant workers.

For more on migrant workers, unpaid wages or Chinese interpretations of the Gangnam Style meme, see prior CDT coverage.

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Post tags: Gangnam style, judicial action, migrant workers, protest, protests, Supreme People's Court, unpaid wages
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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.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chen Guangcheng, chen min, danwei, David Bandurski, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Global Times, Guangdong, Guangdong Department of Propaganda, Han Han, Hu Chunhua, Jeremy Goldkorn, Li Chengpeng, Mao Zedong, maoism, media conditions, new left, people's daily, propaganda, propaganda department, protests, sina, sina weibo, sohu, Southern Media Group, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, tencent, V for Vendetta, Xi Jinping, Xiao Shu
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Tencent paid tribute to Qidong protesters and others.

- Tribute to Ten Protesters (致敬十大反对者): The Web portal Tencent posted an homage to 2012′s most notable Chinese protesters on December 30. The popular post was harmonized two days later.

- Dai Xianglong (戴相龙): Dai, former governor of the People’s Bank of China, and his relatives have profited immensely from stock in Ping An Insurance, according to a December 30 New York Times exposé.

- Taihong Co. (泰鸿公司): Tianjin Taihong, which purchased cheap stock in Ping An, is mentioned in the Times piece on Dai. In October, the Times revealed that outgoing prime minister Wen Jiabao’s relatives hold shares in Taihong.

- Ox Demon (牛妖): Pronounced niú yāo, this refers to New York (纽约 Niǔyuē). The New York Times so  rankled Chinese officials with its report on the Wen family wealth that its Chinese-language website, just launched on June 28, 2012, was blocked. Times reporter Chris Buckley, who has been in China for 15 years, was forced to leave the country at the end of December when his journalist visa was not renewed.

- Chen Pokong (陈破空): A political commentator and activist, Chen was imprisoned for almost five years for his involvement in the Tiananmen protests of 1989. He currently lives in the United States.

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post. 

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Chen Pokong, dai xianglong, filtered keywords, Internet censorship, Ministry of Truth, new york times, official corruption, protests, Sensitive Words Series, sina weibo, tencent, weibo
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Protest banners in Haizhou, Guangdong.

The following examples of censorship instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those 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 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.

Guangdong Propaganda Department: Do not republish or comment on the China Business Journal report [zh] which states that Guangdong has chosen Hengqin, Nansha, and Shixing as the locations for a pilot program for the public disclosure of officials’ personal finances. Do not produce reports on related content. (December 11, 2012)

广东省委宣传部：对中国经营报有关广东试点官员财产公示地区敲定为横琴、南沙、始兴三地的报道不转载不评论，对相关内容也不作报道。

Guangdong Propaganda Department: With regards to the issue of of some of the masses assembling in Haizhou Village, Gu Township, Zhongshan City, except for what has been planned in concert, all media are without exception not to investigate or report without authorization. (December 12, 2012)

广东省委宣传部：中山古镇海州村部分群众聚集的问题，除统一安排外，各媒体一律不擅自采访报道。

According to a December 12 post on the BBS forum Tianya [zh], Haizhou villagers have been staging a sit-in in front of the local government building for several months to push for a thorough investigation into the disappearance of 3 billion yuan in compensation funds for the construction of a highway on their land. Local Party secretary Yuan Songfang apparently committed suicide by jumping off a building on the 12th. He was recently suspended from his post in the on-going investigation. Protests were ongoing as of the 12th.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, China Business Journal, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Guangdong, Haizhou, land protests, land rights, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, official corruption, personal finances, propaganda, protests, Yuan Songfang
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