Thursday, 5 May 2022

Netizens Decry The Display Of Their IP Addresses

Several of China’s largest social media companies including Weibo, Douyin, Toutiao, Zhihu, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu have announced that they will display users’ IP addresses. The measure, which will affect the majority of Chinese internet users, is ostensibly an effort to tamp down on online “rumor-mongering.” Earlier this month, many of the same companies announced campaigns to scrub their platforms of “historical nihilism,” the Party’s term for heterodox histories that challenge its interpretations of the past (and thus the present.) For Reuters, Eduardo Baptista reported on Weibo’s decision to publicly display IP addresses, making it the first site to do so: 

Weibo, which has over 570 million monthly active users, said users’ IP addresses would be displayed under new settings which came into effect on Thursday and cannot be turned off by users.
[…] The settings are designed to “reduce bad behavior such as impersonating parties involved in hot topic issues, malicious disinformation and traffic scraping, and to ensure the authenticity and transparency of the content disseminated,” it said in a notice.

[…] Weibo, which has been on the receiving end of several fines from China’s cyberspace regulator over the past year, frequently publishes notices about its efforts to combat bad behavior online, including posting the names of accounts punished. [Source]

The measure has prompted a student at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University to file suit against Weibo for displaying her IP address and location without her permission. Using the pseudonym “Little Moon,” the student filed a civil suit in a Beijing court tasked with adjudicating internet-related disputes. After a short back-and-forth, the court accepted her case on April 21, 2022. An essay detailing her appeal has been censored from WeChat. CDT has no further updates on the case at the present time. 

Weibo users have ridiculed the practice of displaying IP addresses and expressed fears about its dangers, including the potential for digital witch-hunts, geographic discrimination, and increased self-censorship: 

廖外划线丹：I suggest they also display your Party membership status, your number of children, your class status, your employer (state-owned enterprise, private company, or foreign company), your work title, your annual salary, your savings account balance, your home’s square-footage, your penis size…

某个漪: Pinpointing our location without our permission, so everyone who uses Weibo will be under constant surveillance. Is that the goal?

]抠脚少女：The water you’re using to boil us frogs is getting hotter, and fast. 

塔珥塔羅斯：Blink again and they’ll announce they’re showing our home addresses. 

陈昊然：The noose around our necks is getting tighter. [Chinese]

The new measure has also exposed the hypocrisy of certain nationalistic social media accounts, in addition to the absurdities of China’s existing internet controls, which sometimes require foreigners to register their accounts using a Chinese phone number:

After Weibo began displaying IP addresses, China’s other social media giants quickly followed suit. At South China Morning Post, Coco Feng reported on the move, which will impact the majority of China’s internet-using population:

The platforms said the measure, which is not mandated by law, is meant to “prevent netizens from pretending to be locals and spreading rumors”. Other platforms implementing the change include TikTok owner ByteDance’s news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, Douyin short video rival Kuaishou, and lifestyle community Xiaohongshu, which all said locations will be visible on user profiles. Zhihu, China’s popular question-and-answer site, said user locations will be displayed alongside each post.

[…] While China’s central government has been reining in online content over the past year with increasing regulatory oversight, there is no official regulation requiring platforms to display user location. In March, the internet watchdog Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said this year’s campaign to clean up online chaos included cracking down on rumors.

[…] The move marks the biggest effort since 2017 to introduce more transparency to user identities online. Five years ago, a slew of social platforms started requiring users to associate their accounts with a phone number, which in China must be registered with a national ID. [Source]

The crackdown on “rumor-mongering” has not been confined to cyberspace. Shanghai authorities have pursued people who have spread “rumors” about the city’s outbreak, even when they turn out to be true, as was the case for two men investigated in March for “fabricating” information about the city’s imminent lockdown in an alleged attention-seeking ploy. The city locked down just days later, a lockdown which is now in its fifth week. State-media outlet Global Times reported that Shanghai will “severely [crack] down on rumors and has already shuttered 30 WeChat groups and punished 23 individuals for their posts. 

In a now-censored Zhihu post, one user hypothesized how Lu Xun might have been treated by both police and netizens had the internet existed while he was writing in the 1920s. Referencing historical events such as Dr. Li Wenliang’s admonishment notice, the Chinese government’s characterization of Hong Kong protesters as “radicals” and “thugs,” and the massacre of students and Beijing residents on June 4, 1989, the Zhihu poster imagined a world in which Lu Xun was treated as a rumor-monger and arrested: 

Police: Zhou Shuren, by tracing your IP address, we’ve established that the online user known as “Lu Xun” is you. 

Zhou Shuren: It is I. 

Police: What were you hoping to achieve by posting “In Memory of Miss Liu Hezhen” online?

Zhou Shuren: My intention is evident in the title. 

Police：You say Liu Hezhen was gunned down. Did you see that with your own eyes?

Zhou Shuren: I did not. 

Police: You’re a rumor-monger!

Zhou Shuren：I heard of it from others.

Police：Don’t believe rumors, and don’t spread rumors. You will be held legally responsible!

Zhou Shuren: I… 

Police: Liu Hezhen and others colluded with foreign forces in a plot to throw China into chaos. We say they are “rioters.” Do you have a problem with that?

Zhou Shuren: I do not. 

Police：What did you mean by: “Unless we burst out, we shall perish in this silence!” What were you trying to provoke? What are you trying to overthrow?

Zhou Shuren: I wasn’t trying to do anything. 

Police: What did you mean by: “One is that the authorities could act so barbarously, another that the rumor-mongers could sink so low, yet another that Chinese girls could face death so bravely.” Were you trying to say we are savage and evil, while glorifying rioters?

Zhou Shuren: I … 

Police: We are now going to arrest you, in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Republic of China, on charges of subverting state power, picking quarrels and provoking trouble, slander, and libel. Do you understand? 

Zhou Shuren: I understand.

Police: If you understand, then write here that you “clearly understand” and then sign your name to it. 

Zhou Shuren: Okay. 

————————

Beiyang News: A man from Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province colluded with foreign forces, spread rumors, slandered and libeled law enforcement officials, and attempted to subvert state power. In accordance with the law, Zhejiang police arrested the suspect, identified only by his surname “Zhou.” We once again urge all citizens of the Republic not to believe or spread rumors. 

Netizen A: Nice one! If you think China is bad, you should pitch in and help instead of adding to the chaos!

Netizen B: I know this Zhou Shuren. When he was young he studied abroad in Japan. His brother married a Japanese woman. He’s definitely on Japan’s payroll!

Netizen C: He comes from a landlord background. Strike down the landlords!

Netizen D: He’s a public intellectual, and even teaches at Peking University. This calls for a thorough investigation into PKU. We can’t have him corrupting students!

Netizen E: He abandoned his wife and slept with one of his students. He’s a bad guy!

Netizen F: Who knows what sort of improper relationship he had with Liu Hezhen! [Chinese]

 



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/05/netizens-decry-the-display-of-their-ip-addresses/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Wednesday, 4 May 2022

Photo: kongfu dream, by Jerry Luo

A man dressed in saffron clothing practices martial arts along a verdant river, opposite a pagoda-style building constructed of concrete brick.

kongfu dream, by Jerry Luo (CC BY 2.0)



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/05/photo-kongfu-dream-by-jerry-luo/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Translation: “We’re going backwards. We’ve put the car in reverse and we’re giving it gas.”

Since the lockdown in Shanghai began five weeks ago, numerous video and audio recordings about the suffering of people in Shanghai have circulated online, and many have been censored. “Voices of April,” a six-minute viral video comprised of leaked audio clips, was widely shared before government censorship directives demanded its removal. A 20-minute phone call in which epidemiologist Dr. Zhu Weiping criticized the failures of that city’s lockdown became very popular for a brief time before it, too, was censored. There was also a humorous, profane nine-minute audio recording of a phone call in which a German resident in Shanghai objected to the absurdities and inefficiencies of local quarantine policy.

Last week, an audio recording of a telephone call between a local cadre and a Shanghai man complaining about the lockdown was widely shared and later censored on Chinese social media. Many were impressed by the man’s frank criticism of the uncaring attitude of some CCP cadres, as well as his references to political and economic parallels from Chinese history. 

CDT editors have archived and transcribed the 16-minute-long call, which is translated in full below:

Subdistrict Committee Officer: No, that’s not our job, so I’m not sure. Our job’s just to receive the supplies and pass them along to the different neighborhood committees.

Female resident: So …

Officer: As for where those supplies came from, I’m guessing they were purchased by the district government or something. 

Female resident: So this …

Officer: If you haven’t received yours, all I can do is make a note of it, and pass on the information to your neighborhood committee and the sub-district committee, but …

Female resident: So you’re saying the district commerce committee sent you the supplies, and you’re just responsible for distributing them, right?

Officer: Um, I think that’s probably the case.

Female resident: Then you must at least know which department sent you the supplies, right? Whether it was the commerce committee or some other department, right? 

Officer: I’d have to ask, because …

Female resident: You don’t even know who sent you the supplies?

Officer: I just work in reception. I don’t know, I really don’t. We don’t handle the supplies. Each department …

Female resident: Well, can you confirm whether or not the Caojiadu subdistrict committee sent out five rounds of supplies? I’d like to confirm that.

Officer: That sounds right.

Male resident: Excuse me, officer, here’s the situation. Right now, our family is able to get enough food through other means to satisfy our daily needs. But this area of Caojiadu around Jing’an Temple has a high concentration of elderly people, and so far we’ve only received four deliveries of supplies, one of which was just disinfectant and a spray bottle, and that’s not edible, right? And most of what we got was vegetables, not meat. It’s been how long, now? Nearly a month since the lockdown began on April first. Do you think a typical family can survive on just four food deliveries? I understand there are things you can’t talk about, and that you may not be able to give us a straight answer. I understand you’re in a difficult position, too. The situation in Shanghai isn’t the fault of any particular individual or government department, but it’s still beyond belief.

I’m fifty, and I’ve lived through a lot of things in Shanghai, including epidemics, natural disasters, and man-made disasters which I won’t go into details about. But I’ve never seen Shanghai like this. We’ve become numb. Not everyone is capable of getting what they need via the internet, you know? You look around and see sick folks who can’t get treatment, kids who can’t go to school, workers who can’t go to work, business being put on hold. And we put up with it all, right? Chinese people are easygoing to a fault, you could say. But when you mess with their food and basic survival, you’re crossing the line. You should be able to look up how many deliveries the neighborhood committee made, and what was in each one. So far we’ve gotten radishes, carrots, some greens, luncheon meat, and milk. Do you think that little bit contains enough protein and nutrients for a typical family? No one seems to care. Or does no one care because nobody’s complaining?

Officer: So the reason you called us … I’m trying to understand, sir. What exactly is your request?

Male resident: My request is simple! I want to know if you care about the residents of this neighborhood, including a lot of elderly folks, many of whom need medical treatment. I want to know whether you think the amount of food you’re supplying is enough to meet our basic needs. Sure, I can eat a bit less, reduce my activity, even cut down to two meals a day, no problem. But the difference between what a typical family like ours needs to survive, and the amount of food you’re supplying … it’s just too big a gap, officer.

Officer: Right.

Male resident: And it’s not like we insist on fresh vegetables every day, but they don’t keep for long. After a few days, they go bad.

Officer: All right.

Male resident: Right. And what’s the most important thing you need to fight the virus? Immunity. How am I supposed to keep up my immunity with insufficient nutrition? And what if I were ill? Our downstairs neighbor has cancer, and she can’t see a doctor, can’t get chemo, can’t get anyone to clean the catheter in her arm, and now her arm’s infected. Maybe you’re overwhelmed, maybe you’ve become numb because you’ve heard too many stories like this. We’re living the stories, and we’ve become numb, too. But this way of doing things is just wrong. This endless lockdown: they say one thing today, another tomorrow, giving us false hope until there’s no hope left. It’s never-ending. As long as you give us a definitive date, we can be patient and stick it out. No problem. And if supplies need to be rationed, fine, just let us know what the limit is so we can keep track.

Officer: Um-hm.

Male resident: How many more days are we talking here? I need to know that to be able to ration my limited supplies. You ought to at least tell me that.

Officer: Right now, I can’t …

Male resident: I don’t even know how many more days we’re looking at. How am I supposed to know how to ration?

Officer: Um-hm.

Male resident: And this is the city center of Shanghai that we’re talking about. If this is how things are being managed here, what about suburbs and towns that are further away? What about the bigger residential communities? What kind of a job are you doing over there? You’d be even more overwhelmed. You’d have all sorts of reasons to ignore those people. If you can’t even manage a small community like ours, how could you possibly deal with a community many times as big?

Officer: Um.

Male resident: Now, this really isn’t something that can be overcome, because it’s come down to basic survival. Look at all the peasant uprisings throughout Chinese history and you’ll see that as meek as Chinese people are, you can’t mess with our basic survival. If you take away our rice bowls and starve us, we’ll revolt. Wouldn’t you agree? If you levy extortionate taxes, OK, no problem, the common folk will put up with it. If you confiscate their harvest, at first, no one’s going to revolt. But if you really push people to the brink of starvation, then you’re asking for trouble, officer. 

Officer: Sir, let me say this: all of us at the subdistrict office are aware of the problems you described. As for people being unable to get medical treatment, even our bosses are at their wits’ end, but their hands are tied.

Male resident: I know. I’ve tried so hard to help the old woman downstairs. I’ve made reports, I’ve contacted so many departments, so many volunteers, people who care…

Officer: That’s not my fault.

Male resident: No, I’m not blaming you, not at all. I’ve made calls to many departments, including yours. I know you’re doing your best, and I appreciate it.

Officer: It’s hard for us grassroots cadres. At least you’re able to stay in your homes. We’re stuck here, sleeping in our offices.

Male resident: I understand, I do. I completely understand …

Officer: We’ve been living in our offices.

Male resident: But we’re just regular folks. We can’t make ourselves heard at the very top. You’re the highest level we can access. Who else can we turn to?

Female resident: Maybe …

Male resident: Even the 12345 hotline is worthless.

Female resident: Do you perhaps have a contact number for your supervising department? Maybe I can call them directly.

Officer: No, I really don’t.

Female resident: Oh …

Male resident: You are asking the wrong person. These grassroots cadres manning the hotlines are just cannon fodder. Let’s not mince words here. Your department, this hotline right here, is taking all the flak. But what can you do? I understand you’re in a difficult situation.

Officer: Well, I appreciate that.

Male resident: But when our survival is threatened, where can we turn to? If we speak up, we get admonished, blacklisted, and controlled. Is that how you get your kicks? Why are you doing this? Aren’t Chinese people docile enough already? Does lording it over these docile folks make you feel high and mighty? Is bullying the meek your idea of fun?

Officer: Well, sir, I mean …

Male resident: So far you’ve sent us five deliveries of supplies. One of those was just a disinfectant solution. What was I supposed to do with that, drink it? Guzzle it down? You can go over to the neighborhood committee and look up the other four to see what you sent out. The only halfway decent food package had some milk and luncheon meat. The rest were all vegetables. They sent eggs once. We’re not allowed to go out and buy food, and the prices are sky-high.

Officer: Um. 

Male resident: Not all families can afford these high prices. Some are barely scraping by. If you’re charging five or six times the normal price, they just can’t afford it. Maybe they can scrape by for a week, at most. My family can’t keep going like this, either. You’ve closed down all the shops, forcing us to buy from these so-called “licensed suppliers.” Then you blame the delivery workers for spreading the virus. You tell me: can these drivers even go out on the streets without approval? It seems like they’re just a convenient scapegoat. Who are they hurting? Wouldn’t we be worse off without them? We ought to be thanking them for their service, not dumping shit on them! Anyway, don’t delivery workers have to take COVID tests? Are all those cops out on the street just giving them a free pass, letting them roam the streets freely during a pandemic? You’ve got to be kidding me. The other day, I drove our housekeeper somewhere, and the cops stopped me twice within 30 minutes to check my travel permit. With controls that strict, you still can’t stop the spread? Do you expect us to believe there are COVID-positive delivery workers out there, roaming the streets? What a load of nonsense. You’re just looking for excuses, looking for scapegoats. You lock down the whole city, and yet we’re still having an endless stream of new cases. Don’t you find that strange?

Officer: I do find it strange, to be honest.

Male resident: Insulting our intelligence like this is outrageous. One positive case today, one positive case tomorrow … it’s never-ending. You’re just dragging this out. When’s the lockdown going to be lifted? Nobody can give us a straight answer.

Officer: I want this lockdown to end soon, too, so I can go home, and so you can …

Male resident: It’s not about when the lockdown is going to end, let me tell you. It’s about when you guys decide you’re done playing. Right? How are you going to “reach zero” and “wipe out” the virus? You can’t even wipe out flies and mosquitos. Viruses are invisible to the naked eye. Viruses have existed on this earth for far, far longer than humans. Humans haven’t been around long, but you think anyone could wipe us out? You’ve got to be kidding me. Someone downstairs from us tested positive and they were fine, nothing worse than a common cold. Three days later, they got hauled off to quarantine. In an old building like ours, if they’d been infectious, we’d all be dead! 

Officer: Sir, I sympathize with everything you’re saying, truly. But our subdistrict committee office just carries out policy.

Male resident: I get it, I do. Right now, Shanghai’s not under Shanghaiers’ control. 

Officer: [inaudible]

Male resident：I understand your plight. You’re sleeping in your office without showers or a change of clothes. 

Officer: Things like PCR testing and antigen testing, that’s all organized at the district level. It’s part of a coordinated plan.

Male resident: Do the math. How much of our hard-earned tax money is being wasted on this?

Officer: I know, but our hands are tied. 

Male resident: How many people don’t have insurance, can’t afford to see a doctor, and end up dying outside the hospital door, yet you’re squandering our limited social service funding. What’s the point of this endless PCR testing? Is it necessary? We go along with it, despite our reservations. Every time you call for more testing, we give you our active cooperation. What more do you want from us? Every time we turn around, you’re poking something up our noses. How’s that working out? You think if you poke enough swabs up our noses, you’ll bring this city’s outbreak under control?

Officer: I know you’re very angry, but they’re poking swabs up my nose every day too, and I don’t like it, either. 

Male resident: It’s pointless, well and truly pointless. This is about science … 

Officer: It ought to be … 

Male resident: This is science. It’s not a problem you can solve with grand ideology or a strong fighting spirit. It’s science! What you’re all doing is pseudoscience. You should leave it to the professionals. If you can take a scalpel and perform surgery, and the guy doesn’t die on the operating table, then I’ll listen to you. Because you can do something I can’t. But the way you guys … when I called you today, I didn’t expect any answers. I understand things are hard for you, and you’re exhausted, and you’re basically helpless. But do you let us common folk tell you what’s really going on? Is this some kind of game? When does it end? What the hell are you doing, and what are we doing? We’re not doing what we should. Day in and day out we take these meaningless, and even dangerous, PCR tests. [long pause] It wasn’t easy for Shanghai to build up the little bit of capital it has, but it’s easy for you to squander it overnight! Since reform and opening started in ’79, we’ve been working for 40 years to earn a bit of wealth, but look how this month of suffering has left us. And now you want to do it for another month? Building a city isn’t easy—building up its organization, customs, kindness, culture, economy, all that organization—it was no mean feat. It took generations. If you’re looking to destroy it, I’m telling you, it’ll be destroyed before the year is out. In the rest of the world, everyone is sprinting ahead, getting manufacturing up and running, getting back to normal life, getting back to business. But here, we haven’t come to a halt, we’re going backwards. We’ve put the car in reverse and we’re giving it gas. 

Officer: [inaudible]

Male resident: Honestly, officer, maybe I shouldn’t have said so much, but I’ve just bottled up too much rage. 

Officer: You want to vent about the injustice you see. I understand that feeling, I really do.

Male resident: Just do something good for once, will you?

Officer: We grassroots cadres want this lockdown to end, too, and for everyone’s lives to get back to normal …

Male resident: It’s all so pointless. I feel the same. 

Officer: You’re stuck at home, we’re stuck in the office, but we all feel the same. Everyone wants the lockdown to end soon …

Male resident: Even so, officer, even so … I’m stuck at home and can’t do any work. All of my projects are stalled. They’re all stalled. 

Officer: Yes. 

Male resident: It was the same last year. I’m a small business owner, and you’ve been putting me through the ringer for two years now, and why? I’m not productive, and just waste my days waiting around for food aid packages from you guys. There was a tragic period in Chinese history when people just sat around not being productive. Do we really want to repeat that? You’re younger than me. You probably don’t know about those three years. Is that where we’re heading?

Officer: Yes, I hear you. 

Male resident: Kids can’t go to school. Middle school and high school seniors can’t take normal classes or normal exams. My colleague’s daughter goes to an international school, and needs to take an exam to study abroad. How’s she supposed to do that through remote learning? Her tuition’s 120,000 yuan a year. You think they care about your pandemic controls?

Officer: [inaudible]

Male resident: You can’t keep doing this to us, officer, you’re truly … I know that right now, Shanghaiers are afraid to speak up, so they’re standing on the sidelines. If we do speak up, you mow us down like grass, you force us up against the wall … Listen to the voices of the people, will you? We’re out here banging on pots and pans, just to get you to listen. Can you hear us?

Officer: [after a pause] Our office has heard some of that.

Male resident: It’s absurd that this is happening in 21st-century Shanghai. Have you no pride? You think this makes Shanghai look like a respectable international city, or a joke? We’re a laughingstock, understand? You think this is about fighting the pandemic? [long pause] We don’t need to go down that particular rabbit hole. Everyone understands this isn’t about fighting a pandemic. [long silence] Well, I won’t keep you any longer, officer. Thank you. [Chinese]

Translation by Alex Yu and Joseph Brouwer.



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/05/translation-were-going-backwards-weve-put-the-car-in-reverse-and-were-giving-it-gas/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Further Declines in Press Freedom for Hong Kong and China on World Press Freedom Day

To commemorate World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released their annual World Press Freedom Index. It was no joyous occasion for China and Hong Kong, both of which registered among the lowest categories in the rankings. The index, along with other recent media and government reports, demonstrates the dismal state of press freedom in greater China. In Global Voices, Oiwan Lam described the precipitous deterioration of press freedom in Hong Kong: 

Hong Kong has registered the steepest fall in an international Press Freedom Index ever this year. The city was ranked 80th last year and dropped 68 places to 148th among 180 countries in 2022.

[…] In 2002, Hong Kong was ranked 18th — making it a beacon for free press in the world, especially in Asia — but press freedom has eroded significantly. In 2021, after the enactment of the National Security Law (NSL), it dropped to 80th, and it further slipped to 148th this year as the city’s security police forced two major independent news outlets, Apple Daily and Stand News, to shut down.

[…] Hong Kong’s ranking has been dragged down by both legislative and security indicators, as shown in RSF ‘s region-based report. The international watchdog describes the NSL as: “A pretext to gag independent voices in the name of the fight against ‘terrorism’, ‘secession’, ‘subversion’, and ‘collusion with foreign forces.’” [Source]

Cedric Alviani, head of RSF’s Taiwan-based East Asia bureau, told AFP: “It is the biggest downfall of the year, but it is fully deserved due to the consistent attacks on freedom of the press and the slow disappearance of the rule of law in Hong Kong.” The Hong Kong Free Press compiled a detailed month-by-month timeline of declining press freedom in Hong Kong since the introduction of the National Security Law in June 2020. In a symbol of the increasingly inhospitable media landscape, an unofficial Twitter account of public broadcaster RTHK announced on World Press Freedom Day that it would soon shut down and delete all of its previous tweets. The account, which had attracted thousands of followers, had been maintained by a fan after the official RTHK Twitter account abruptly deleted all of its tweets last August. 

Erin Hale from Al Jazeera described how Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam defiantly praised the city’s level of press freedom and offered her own alternative metric:

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that Hong Kong’s press freedom was “as vibrant as ever” citing the large number of regional and international institutions operating in Hong Kong alongside local media.

“This is by itself a very good indication of the vibrancy of press freedom in Hong Kong,” Lam told reporters. “But as I said on many occasions, particularly with the enactment of the National Security Law, journalists, media organisations, are not above the law.”

[…] Tom Grundy, the founder and editor-in-chief of Hong Kong Free Press, said Lam’s metric was not the best way to measure press freedom.

“The quantity of government-registered news outlets is not an indicator of the quality of Hong Kong’s press freedom,” he told Al Jazeera. “Most outlets in Hong Kong are outright owned by Beijing, owned by Chinese conglomerates or owned by those with business interests in China.” [Source]

According to RSF’s barometer, 18 journalists were imprisoned in Hong Kong in 2021. In China more broadly, there were 50 journalists imprisoned in 2021, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released last December. This number includes Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist who was jailed in December 2020 for reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan; Cheng Lei, a CGTN news anchor arrested in August 2020 for “illegally supplying state secrets to foreign forces”; Haze Fan, a Bloomberg news assistant who was forcibly disappeared in December 2020; Huang Xueqin, a #MeToo activist and journalist arrested for “inciting subversion”; and many others detained on vague or unfounded political charges. Asim Kashgarian from VOA noted that 22 of the journalists on CPJ’s list are Uyghurs, but that there are dozens more whose detentions went unrecorded:

Abduweli Ayup, founder of Uyghur Hjelp, a Norway-based organization that documents China’s Uyghur rights violations, said the CPJ’s findings are just “the tip of the iceberg.” His organization found 40 Uyghur journalists who were jailed in China in recent years.

“In our data, there are at least 40 imprisoned Uyghur journalists among over 400 Uyghur intellectuals incarcerated by Chinese authorities,” Ayup told VOA. “If we include Uyghur website bloggers and government radio and TV hosts to our list, the number of jailed Uyghur journalists is at least over a hundred.”

Ayup said that the 22 imprisoned Uyghur journalists in CPJ’s report are only the ones confirmed by media. [Source]

Inspired to comment on World Press Freedom Day, Matthias Sander, a China tech correspondent for Swiss daily NZZ, offered a detailed account of the incessant surveillance he encountered while on a recent holiday in Guizhou: 

The U.S. government also weighed in on China’s lack of press freedom. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called China the biggest threat to press freedom, citing the imprisonment of Chinese journalists. He stated that the U.S. is “deeply concerned” about the increase in “surveillance, harassment, intimidation, [and] censorship” of Chinese journalists. The U.S. Congress also introduced two resolutions on press freedom, one of which criticizes China as “one of the worst media environments in the world.” In the 2022 RSF index, China ranked 175 out of 180 countries.

There is little incentive for Chinese journalists to deviate from the government line. China Media Bulletin described a recent report by a Chinese government think tank that equates the success of digital media with the extent to which it advances the agenda of the CCP: 

Late last month, the State Information Center, a policy think-tank under the Chinese government, released its 2021 China Online Media Development Report (中国网络媒体发展报告). Pitched as a broad overview of developments in the country’s online media industry, the report assesses 20 major online media platforms, including both state-owned media websites and private internet platforms.

[…] But the rankings in the SIC report, and the case studies cited in online media development, make clear that the report’s primary concern is to chart the effectiveness of online platforms in serving the news and information agenda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As such, the report offers an interesting glimpse into CCP thinking on both the transformation of Party-led media and the operationalizing of private online platforms in the digital era.

[…] After opening with an emphasis on the leadership of CCP with comrade Xi Jinping as the “core,” the report’s preface says that “online media steadily increased positive propaganda and educational leadership” in 2021. Betraying the clear linkage in the report between CCP agendas and success metrics, the preface notes that “online media steadily enriched broadcast methods and content surrounding the national glories of the centennial of the CCP.” [Source]

Despite the shrinking space for Chinese press freedom, there were some optimistic conclusions to the day. Taiwan managed to maintain its “satisfactory” ranking and even jumped up five positions to number 38 in the RSF index, although Cedric Alviani cautioned that the change was more a result of the new methodology and noted the “toxic” working environment for some journalists. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy also celebrated World Press Freedom Day by holding a panel discussion on the role of media in advancing Tibetan democracy and ways to empower Tibetan journalists. Finally, in an op-ed for the Hong Kong Free Press, Hong Kong journalist Yuen Chan argued that the fight for the city’s press freedom has not been in vain, and that “there will be journalism as long as there are journalists”:

Despite the death notices, despite the closures, the arrests, the smears, the sad and reluctant departure of their peers, there are journalists who simply continue to do their jobs. They are striving to map the contours of the new landscape, an almost impossible task because the sands are constantly shifting. As a journalist at the now defunct Citizen News told me when Apple Daily closed: “There will be journalism as long as there are journalists.”

For most Hong Kong journalists, the notion of what journalism should be – a rigorous process of telling stories and presenting facts, providing context and holding power to account – is unchanged.

Many Hongkongers, I think, share that belief. They have marched to defend press freedom, they opened up their wallets to the independent online media that sprung up when mainstream media succumbed to creeping self-censorship under the strain of political and economic pressure, and they queued up for hours in the dark to buy the last copies of Apple Daily.

The past campaigns were not futile after all. They helped to entrench the idea of press freedom in a city that adopted it as a core value. Hongkongers will not easily forget that the current landscape is not a natural state of affairs.

[…] When big gestures become foolhardy, dangerous or impossible, small acts of solidarity with those quietly toiling at the coalface become more important than ever. [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/05/further-declines-in-press-freedom-for-hong-kong-and-china-on-world-press-freedom-day/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Photo: Untitled, by Jim Gourley



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/05/photo-untitled-by-jim-gourley/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Tuesday, 3 May 2022

No End in Sight to China’s Prolonged, Opaque, Extralegal Detentions

While millions of Shanghai residents are locked in their homes due to pandemic-prevention and quarantine measures, other Chinese citizens are held in government detention on trumped-up political charges. A series of recent cases shines a light on the CCP’s continuing use of extrajudicial detention to silence dissenting voices. One such case involves a Chinese employee of the EU delegation to Beijing, An Dong, who was recently revealed to have been in custody since September 2021. Finbarr Bermingham from the South China Morning Post reported on An’s detention, allegedly for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”:

“Despite multiple requests on our side to the Chinese authorities, we have so far not been informed either of the allegation(s) nor of the specific charge(s) he faces. We will continue inquiring until we get a proper answer,” [said Nabila Massrali, the EU’s spokeswoman for foreign affairs.]

The case was first reported by French newspaper Le Monde, which named the employee as An Dong who worked in the IT department of the EU delegation in Beijing. The report said he was being held in Sichuan province, thousands of kilometres west of the capital.

[…] According to Le Monde, the EU wrote to China’s foreign ministry in October, using a form of diplomatic communication known as a “note verbale”. They asked the ministry to investigate and explain the detention, and to ensure their employee had access to a lawyer of his choosing, rather than a court-appointed representative. [Source]

The Wall Street Journal noted that An spoke positively of democracy on WeChat, and Le Monde stated that within the delegation he was open about his Christianity and was known to occasionally post on Facebook, which is blocked in China. Having received no response from the Chinese government about why An was detained, the EU delegation then sent a second “note verbale” in late November 2021, and a third one in February of this year. None of them garnered a response. “It is an unprecedented affair,” Le Monde’s Frédéric Lemaitre wrote. “It seems that this is the first time a Chinese employee of a Western diplomatic mission has been arrested for something other than a common law affair. This precedent risks increasing pressure on this category of personnel.” 

There have been other similar incidents. In August 2019, Simon Cheng, a former employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong, was detained by the government for 15 days for allegedly “soliciting prostitutes.” After his release, Cheng claimed that he was tortured during detention and forced into a false confession. In December 2020, Haze Fan, a Chinese news assistant for Bloomberg, was detained on national security charges. There has been no news of her condition or whereabouts since her disappearance almost one and half years ago.

Another recent case concerns Taiwanese businessman Lee Meng-chu, also known as Morrison Lee, who has been subject to an exit ban. Lee was arrested in mainland China in 2019 after attending pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and sentenced to 22 months in jail and two years’ deprivation of political rights. Although he recently completed his prison term, authorities claim he cannot leave the country until his two-year deprivation of political rights expires. Safeguard Defenders described Lee’s case and the authorities’ position toward it:

Lee disappeared in August 2019 from Shenzhen in southern China shortly after he had taken part in anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong. He was held under China’s secret jail system, Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL), and later appeared as one of several Taiwanese giving forced confessions on state television broadcaster CCTV. Lee was tried in secret, accused of espionage, based on photos he took of military drills in Shenzhen. However better quality photo and video of the same scene were also published on Chinese media, indicating that his prosecution was politically-motivated.

[… D]eprivation of political rights according to China’s Criminal Law (Article 54), is not associated with limiting freedom of movement. Rather is defined as “The right to elect and the right to be elected; the right to freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration; the right to hold a position in state organs; and the right to hold a leading position in a state-owned company, enterprise, or institution or people’s organization.”

By not allowing Morrison Lee to leave, Beijing is also violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which it signed in 1998, although not yet ratified. Article 12-2 says: “Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.” [Source]

Meanwhile, many human rights activists and lawyers have languished in custody, and little information has surfaced about their health or the conditions in which they are being held. The NGO Chinese Human Rights Defenders profiled some of those with delayed trials and unreasonably prolonged pretrial detentions: 

The trial of Wang Aizhong, a social media activist who highlighted vulnerable communities, was set to take place on April 12 at the Guangzhou Tianhe District Court on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” but the trial was canceled four days before the scheduled date. The court refused to provide Wang’s lawyer with any rationale for the sudden cancelation, including refusing to confirm whether it was COVID-related.

The police have told Wang Aizhong’s wife that he was detained because of his social media posts and for giving foreign media interviews. While in detention, Wang has lost 10kg due to poor nutrition and he has been prevented from purchasing extra food or toiletries from the commissary.  

In August 2021, Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong, two advocates for a new forms of civic engagement, were indicted on the charge of “subversion of state power.” and people monitoring their cases speculated that they could be tried over the Christmas 2021 and New Year 2022 holiday period, although this did not materialize. 

Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong were scheduled to have a pre-trial meeting in late March 2022, but this failed to materialize, and their lawyers received no notices or explanations from authorities. Ding was detained just after both men attended a private gathering in Fujian Province held on December 7-8, 2019.

Xu went in hiding until police hunted him down in February 2020. They have been in pre-trial detention for more than two years. 

Also in pre-trial detention in a related case is human rights defender Li Qiaochu, who was detained in February 2021 after she publicly reported that Ding and Xu had been tortured. Li was indicted on February 28, 2022 on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power” and the indictment stated that she had come under the politically subversive influence of her partner, Xu Zhiyong, and she had helped him upload articles to his website. However, some of the “evidence” against her has come into question. One of the witnesses listed in the indictment against Li Qiaochu, Zhang Zhongshun, has said that he didn’t even know who she was before he was released on bail on June 19, 2020. [Source]

Tennis star Peng Shuai has not been seen since her seemingly coerced appearances at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. Last week, Steve Simon, head of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), confirmed to the Tennis Podcast that the WTA would not resume any of its activities in China this year due to Peng’s treatment by the Chinese government. “We remain dedicated to finding a resolution to this,” Simon said. “We want to find a resolution that Peng can be comfortable with, the Chinese government can be comfortable with, and we can be comfortable with.” He added that the WTA has not had any recent communication with her.

Chinese #MeToo activist Sophia Huang Xueqin is also in detention, along with labor activist Wang Jianbing, after being forcibly disappeared in September of last year. The pair were charged with “inciting subversion,” and in March their case was transferred to the Guangzhou Municipal Procuratorate for review and decision on prosecution. Safeguard Defenders recently learned that “since her arrest, about 70 of Xueqin’s friends and fellow feminists have been continuously summoned, intimidated and interrogated by the police, and forced to sign false confessions alleging the two of having partaken in so-called training activities to ‘subvert state power.’” Last month, NüVoices published an open letter by a group of Chinese feminists criticizing the inaction by Huang’s university and scholarship program, and calling on them to step up their support:

When Sophia first disappeared, the University of Sussex released a statement expressing concern. But since her arrest has been confirmed, the university has not publicly commented on her case. The students are also unaware of what exactly the University of Sussex has done so far on the case, and whether they are still keeping an eye on her situation. Everything seems to have fallen onto the deaf ears. We cannot help but question if the University of Sussex truly cares about the safety and well-being of its students, and if it is willing to pressure the Chinese government on behalf of the safety of its students.

It is also disappointing to see the lack of action from the Chevening Awards Programme. Despite the fact that a number of Chevening scholars have strongly raised concerns about the plight of Sophia and Jianbing, and have asked Chevening to stand with them and demand for their release, there has been no official statement from the programme since her arrest had been confirmed.

[…] We hope that the University of Sussex and the Chevening Awards Programme will take concrete action to support and demonstrate solidarity with Sophia and Wang Jianbing, and negotiate with the relevant authorities transparently, in a way that those who are concerned about the two activists are able to witness. Do not disappoint and shame your students, staff, alumni and the community at large by your inaction. [Source]

Lausan recently published an interview with two activists in the global campaign group to free Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing, who shared their reflections on their activism from abroad and what it means for the future of Chinese social movements:

Uchiyama: How can feminists and labor activists outside of the PRC support their friends in the PRC? 

Yaya: I think the first thing is to pay attention to them and listen to them. Don’t pretend the elephant does not exist. In official propaganda especially, activists and related issues are more easily disappeared. Secondly, keep speaking out on social media or in your daily life, especially when some people are forced to be silent. Third, those of us who are overseas need to use the resources around us as much as possible. For example, we can use academia and the media to inform more people about cases like Xueqin and Jianbing’s, and encourage them to pay attention to feminism and labour issues. Last, I think it is important to build solidarity with different groups, whether they are feminists, labor activists, or environmental activists. Ultimately, we are all fighting for the same thing: to have a better future for everyone. We cannot watch the fire from the other side (隔岸观火) and pretend that we can be safe by choosing to be silent, obedient and isolated. We are entangled in this world.

Tony: […] Finally, when we continue to talk about Chinese activists, we allow the Chinese movement to be seen and we write its story. We remind the world and ourselves that there are still so many people fighting within China for justice. This is important because we are amplifying the voices of Chinese activists, but also because these activists can be inspirations for other movements. If these activists cannot be remembered domestically, then they need to be remembered internationally. 

This remembrance is also a form of education. I believe more and more people in China will become activists in the future. Issues like workplace justice, the lack of protections for gig workers and the plight of students who face economic crises are major issues right now. When their consciousness is raised, they will need to learn the tactics for social movements from the activists now. Without efforts to document the history of Chinese social movements, there is no future for Chinese activism. [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/05/no-end-in-sight-to-chinas-prolonged-opaque-extralegal-detentions/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)