Madeline Earp - Committee to Protect Journalists

Chinese writer ends Japanese exile after 90 days in airport

February 8, 2010 2:30 PM EST

A Chinese dissident who writes about rights abuses is ending an involuntary exile in Japan on Friday. Or so he hopes. Feng Zhenghu has booked a flight departing Japan’s Narita Airport for Shanghai at 9:45 a.m. on February 12. That was the topic of an impromptu press conference held Monday afternoon in the brightly lit…

Google-China debate keeps Internet security in spotlight

February 5, 2010 2:50 PM EST

Google has gone quiet since its announcement last month that it was unwilling to continue censoring search results on Google.cn in China. The Washington Post reported Thursday that the company is seeking help from the U.S. government to trace hackers behind security breaches, which it said targeted its own intellectual property and individual human rights…

Yang Zili's Twitter page describes his eight years in prison.

Released writer tweets about life in a Chinese prison

January 28, 2010 3:11 PM EST

Siweiluozi’s Blog, an anonymous blog that covers various Chinese legal issues and current affairs, has translated a series of updates by Chinese writer Yang Zili, who was arrested in 2001 and later convicted of subversion against the state for online articles. Released last year after serving eight years, Yang joined Twitter and has been describing…

Denials aside, repression as usual online in China

January 25, 2010 1:28 PM EST

China has denied any involvement in the cyber attacks that Google revealed on January 12, and has said the country’s Internet is open. Local Internet users and entrepreneurs, however, know otherwise.

Internet control tightens in China

December 18, 2009 1:24 PM EST

The government-appointed agency in charge of China’s .cn domain name announced earlier this month that individuals can no longer apply to purchase new Web sites without ID and a business license, according to international news reports.

Documentary commends Cyclone Nargis journalists

August 25, 2009 5:41 PM EDT

PBS’s “Wide Angle” aired “Eyes of the Storm” last week, a documentary on Cyclone Nargis and its aftermath. Like Anders Ostergaard’s recent film “Burma VJ” on citizen reporters during the monk-led protests in 2007, which we wrote about in April, “Wide Angle” contrasts independent reports filmed at great risk with the junta’s state media claims…

Afghan journalists debate election restrictions

August 20, 2009 3:17 PM EDT

CPJ spoke with three Kabul-based journalists to learn how they and their colleagues around the country responded to the government’s request to mute coverage of violence during polling hours today.

Foreign journalists face violence covering Afghan election

August 20, 2009 3:00 PM EDT

“When we were in that car and he was pointing that gun at us … I thought, ‘We’re done. We’re not getting out of here alive.'”

China’s Green Dam finally cracks

August 17, 2009 2:56 PM EDT

The Chinese government backed away on Thursday from its attempt to mandate censorship software, “Green Dam” and “Youth Escort,” on personal computers, a move that was previously delayed. Ministry of Industry and Information Technology official Li Yizhong denied there was ever an intention to require pre-installation of the programs on Thursday, saying the government’s May…

Learning to read the tea leaves: Reporting in China

July 31, 2009 5:13 PM EDT

While the general trend in China is toward a more open environment, there is a tendency toward “soft harassment” by police, who threaten retribution to sources and news assistants for helping foreign journalists rather than interfering directly with the journalists themselves.