Tongue-in-cheek "patriotic" banners like this one created by "Xiucai" have been cropping up around the Chinese blogosphere. It reads: "Joyfully welcome the 17th Party Congress, building a harmonious society together. Xiucai is a good comrade. This site has temporarily shut down comments and forum features."
Xiucai's creation is just one of many dozens of examples of the latest official crackdown against blogs in the run-up to China's 17th Communist Party Congress - and the defiant response by many Chinese bloggers to the crackdown. John Kennedy's epic post on Global Voices today has the full story. He writes:
...if war were to be declared on bloggers, is the state of today's China's blogsphere what it would look like? Starting this month we've seen blog posts being deleted in places where they almost never used to, comment sections being closed out of fear...
John describes, translates, and links to further information and discussion (from both Chinese and English sources) about the following:
- The latest self-discipline pledge for blog service providers and reactions to it.
- How the plugs have been pulled on Internet Data Centers (IDC's) all across China and how bloggers are reacting.
- Reports that more than 18,000 websites have been shut down in the past few months, with less than half of them for porn.
- Via memedia, one blogger describes the shut down of "three whole floors of fully-certified IDCs in one building in Shanghai."
- How a blogger who wrote critically of the Olympics had his blog shut down and was visited by police.
- How one social networking site yo2.cn has become a "ghost town."
- How four Chinese journalists who blog have been facing heavy censorship, and how one abandoned his blog and the other shut down his blog to protest constant deletion of their posts.
- The posting by one blogger of "the full list of requirements passed to their company by the Public Security Bureau, namely an order for the real-name registration and immediate closure of all non-compliant blogs, BBSes, message boards and any other interactive spaces they host which remains effective until the Seventeenth National Congress wraps up in late October." Read John's translation of the key sections of that order.
John also points to various legal and consumer actions that internet users have begun resorting to this year. In addition to anti-censorship lawsuits filed by bloggers in Shanghai and Beijing, a consumer complaints website in Guangzhou is demanding a public hearing over its impending closure. And Yeetai, the blogger suing China Telecom in Shanghai, has made a call on Twitter to let a thousand class-action lawsuits bloom.
Will any of those lawsuits ever get anywhere? Not long ago I wrote about the Beijing-based lawyer and blogger Liu Xiaoyuan who sued the blog-hosting service, Sohu.com, for censoring some of his blog posts. This past week he reported that his lawsuit was rejected by the Haidian district court in Beijing. He is appealing because he believes that the reasons for rejecting his suit are not legally valid. His efforts to get the local Chinese media to cover his case got nowhere. Suprise suprise. But so far, I haven't seen any Western media coverage of his case either...
"But so far, I haven't seen any Western media coverage of his case either..."
Naturally. We're all just one, big, happy, homogenised, harmonius family now. No reason to rock the boat, that would be 'Cold War Reactionism', wouldn't it?
At least while some people still think they can make money here, anyway.
Posted by: MyLaowai | September 17, 2007 at 07:45 PM
Appriciate your concern to freedom of speech in China, its a very noble thing to do. I used to want to be a Journalist, But its a tough and lonesome road to fight for freedom in China. I think China will change to a democratic republic in 30 or 50 years. We will rise up and make history someday.
Posted by: Hua | September 20, 2007 at 06:00 AM
I don't agree that it will take several decades for democracy in China.
Many people are moving and in action. The key is that more people can know and support them. In today's world, Internet could be the new engine of the social movement instead of parade and other radical behavior causing big social cost. The key is how we use it with law and other offline activities.
So I fully agree the law action of Mr. Liu Xiao Yuan. And I appeal any one saw this can support his lawsuit and my one against China Telecom. You can get more details on my blog,
http://yetaai.blogspot.com
Posted by: yetaai | September 30, 2007 at 12:53 PM