The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.
State Council Information Office: No website may carry stories from the Tencent special report on the experiences of those who underwent re-education through labor in Chongqing. Please delete anything already posted. (November 19, 2013)
国新办：各网不转载腾讯制作的重庆被劳教者忆往事专题的相关稿件，已发的请删除。
The special report, “Living: Remembrances of Chongqing Re-education Through Labor,” is a multimedia portal on the experiences of Ren Jianyu and other Chongqing residents who were sent to re-education through labor (laojiao) during Bo Xilai’s “sing red and beat black” campaign. You can view photos and read the main story from the report on CDT Chinese [zh]. Visit Tencent to watch video [zh].
The report emphasizes “past experiences” (往事) under Bo Xilai, but the Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore reports that many wrongly convicted under Bo’s rules remain in prison, while gangsters, the targets of the “beat black” campaign, are reemerging.
Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as Directives from the Ministry of Truth.
CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
