The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source.
Hyping the following articles is forbidden. Cease from highlighting these stories and allow focus to naturally die down. 1) “Accidental Explosion at Hengyang Military Armory Kills 17.” 2) Thugs in Yechang, Xinjiang Crash Into Police Headquarters; 13 Shot Dead.” (June 23, 2014)
不准炒作以下文章，撤销置顶让其自然下沉：1，《驻衡阳某军械库发生一起爆炸事故17人遇难》，2，《新疆叶城暴徒冲撞公安局大楼13名暴徒被击毙》。
After a rise in violent attacks throughout China—many of which labeled terrorist attacks and attributed to Xinjiang “separatists” by Beijing—central and local governments are engaged in an “ultra-tough, unconventional” crackdown on terrorism. The tightening security has newly empowered some security officials in China with firearms, and censors recently warned all news websites against deviating from official news wire copy when reporting on violence and police shootings. The first article mentioned above covers an explosion at a military armory Hengyang, Hunan that killed 17 soldiers—while reported as accidental, the cause of the explosion is currently under investigation. The second article covers last week’s attack in Yecheng county, Xinjiang, in which 13 attackers were shot dead after driving a car into a police station to detonate explosives. Both articles remain online in China.
Xinjiang has been called the “main battlefield” in the nationwide anti-terror campaign, and part of the crackdown has included mass public sentencing rallies and a tightening of Internet controls. A new report from Reuters rounds up China’s state media on the accomplishments of the campaign in its first month:
Authorities in China‘s far-flung western region of Xinjiang have detained 380 people and busted 32 terror cells in a month-long crackdown on violence, state media said on Monday, following an upsurge in attacks blamed on Islamist militants.
[…] The official Legal Daily said 315 people had been tried for terror-related offences, at least 13 of whom have been executed, an announcement made last week. Six police officers had died on the job as well, the report added.
Police also seized 264 explosive devices, 357 weapons, 101 computers with extremist contents on them and books and DVDs offering training at terror attacks, the newspaper said.
[…] Authorities praised public support for the campaign, including reports about suspicious people, the paper said.
Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say the government’s own repressive policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam, have provoked unrest, a claim Beijing denies. [Source]
CDT collects directives from a variety of sources and checks 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 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.
