A government directive, leaked online, restricts reporting on the removal of crucifixes from churches in Hangzhou and Wenzhou. These Christian symbols were dismantled from government-sanctioned churches, precipitating followers into posting messages of outrage to social media.
The word of the week, wall-rape, is yet another example of clever netizens using the Chinese language to encode messages while at the same time subverting predatory online censors.
Last week, CDT posted netizen reaction to the debut of CCTV special, Deng Xiaoping at History’s Crossroads. This week one Weibo user shared a notice he claims to have found on a local government website, instructing cadres to get together to watch the program.
Confucius Institutes Lose Face: Confucius Institutes, affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education and charged with promoting Chinese culture abroad, are facing another scandal of late.
Free at Last? CDT cartoonist depicts the recent release of human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng. In the drawing, Gao is a bird (reminiscent of the Twitter bird), leaving a small cage only to find himself trapped in a larger cage.
This week’s sensitive words, or search terms that are blocked on Sina Weibo, can be found here.
