China / Asia

  

State-sponsored attacks: open season on online journalists

The last few weeks have offered the strongest indications yet that nation-states are using customized software to exploit security flaws on personal computers and consumer Internet services to spy on their users. The countries suspected include the United States, Israel, and China. Journalists should pay attention–not only because this is a growing story, but because…

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Google declared last week that it would start listing search terms that are censored in China. (Reuters/Jason Lee)

Google gives Chinese Web users glimpse into censorship

In China, people know enough not to take to the streets to commemorate the brutal crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Beijing is very quiet in the days before and after June 4. The Internet is a different story.

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A police officer patrols as part of heavy security at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. (AFP/Mark Ralston)

23 years after Tiananmen, China is still paying

The annual crackdown on commemorations of the June 4 anniversary of the brutal suppression of student-led demonstrations based in Tiananmen Square in 1989 Beijing is under way, according to Agence France-Presse. What’s concerning is the number of writers and activists for whom “crackdown” is the new normal.

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An Internet user visits a Sina Weibo site. (Reuters/Carlos Barria)

Sina ‘information credit score’ restricts Weibo users

Sina’s Twitter-like microblog service Weibo has released new guidelines to restrict users who share banned content, according to international news reports. It’s the first time such guidelines target users who adopt puns, homonyms, and other veiled references to discuss censored news stories without using keywords on the propaganda department’s blacklist, the reports said. 

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Anti-foreign attitudes bode ill for China correspondents

The story of Al-Jazeera English correspondent Melissa Chan’s expulsion from China has a disturbing coda. 

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Several Internet users in China are now unable to access Weibo, the popular microblog platform. (Reuters)

Chinese microblog regulates, suspends users–again

Pity those of us who monitor the ups and downs of China’s popular microblog platform, Sina Weibo. For every story its users spread in defiance of local censorship, there follows a clampdown. Whether it’s the latest strike against rumors, or real name registration, or newly banned keywords, there’s always another restriction in the works as…

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In a press conference today, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Hong Lei, above, evaded questions about Al-Jazeera being denied journalist visas. (AP/Andy Wong)

China ducks questions about Al-Jazeera expulsion

“The Beijing branch of Al-Jazeera is still functioning normally.” This was not an auspicious reaction to the news that Al-Jazeera English has closed its Beijing bureau after being refused journalist visas. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Hong Lei’s responses at today’s press conference did not improve from there, according to a partial transcript published by…

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China shuts out Al-Jazeera English in Beijing

New York, May 7, 2012–China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs should immediately grant accreditation to Al-Jazeera English reporters to work in China, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The channel said China has refused its long-time correspondent Melissa Chan and other colleagues journalist visas, forcing it to close its Beijing bureau. 

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CCTV's East Africa operations are headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. (CCTV)

China’s media footprint in Kenya

Will China’s quickly expanding media presence in Africa result in a fresh, alternative, and balanced perspective on the continent–much as Al-Jazeera altered the broadcast landscape with the launch of its English service in 2006–or will it be essentially an exercise in propaganda?

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A police officer records the press card of a journalist outside a hospital where Chen Guangcheng is seeking treatment. (AP/Ng Han Guan)

Chen Guangcheng reporting censored, obstructed

New York, May 3, 2012–Chinese security officials’ ongoing obstruction of foreign and domestic journalists covering dissident Chen Guangcheng is a worrying sign for supporters trying to secure his safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Authorities in Chen’s native Shandong province have kept the blind, self-taught lawyer isolated from the media since September 2010.

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