matteo mohorovicich

focus: human rights - internationality - freedom of expression - planet earth - aob

When Pope becomes an example of Internet censorship

I can't check it, but trust me that it's most likely to be happened...

The only country (or one of the few) that didn't celebrate with media obsession Pope's death is China. So far, nothing strange. The fact is that they did it with their typical style. That is to say: censorship on the net.
George Lessard, one of the members of Yahoo! group "Chinese Internet Search", wrote that Chinese web portals (such as sina.com and souhu.com) systematically blocked their forums from being posted with prayers, blessings and other comments on the death of John Paul II. On Sunday April 2, the forums were full. On Monday April 3, empty.
Lessard explains: "An official with Sohu.com confirmed the company had censored the comments, using sophisticated technology to allow only the writer to see his or her own comments ... Asked whether the portal had received an order from the government, the official insisted it was the company's own decision".
Even though we admit this last remark to be true, why allowing peple to see only what they posted, so that they can't share anything? Better to ban everyone from talking about religion than giving a semblance of democracy to the whole thing...

Post: matteomohorovicich a 22:29 | link | commenti (5) |
china

Zheng Yichun, another cyberdissident in jail

Just another one to add to the list of Reporters sans frontières: journalist or, as China seems often not to make any difference, cyberdissident Zheng Yichun, aged 48. He was charged with "subverting State power" by publishing articles. Where? Obviously on the same banned newspapers (Epoch Times; here you can find the English online version) and sites (just to tell one, boxun.com), all based abroad.
 The strangest thing (or not so strange, when we speak about censorship, free information repression and imprisonment in China) is that Zheng has been imprisoned on December 3. And only on March 25 (more than three months later!) Rsf wrote about it. Of course, it's not because of their negligence. Zheng's relatives, notified of his charge only on December 31, were warned not to talk about his imprisonment with press or human rights organizations, unless they wanted reprisals. They decided to stop keeping silence after a Yingkou daily newspaper reported the arrest on February 24.

To know more about Zheng's vicissitude, read Rsf.

Post: matteomohorovicich a 22:17 | link | commenti |
china

Does Northel Networks Corporation respect human rights?

As a part of its tenth Five-Year Plan for economic development, China is building a railway to link the northern city of Gormo to the capital of Tibet, Lhasa. The project will connect for the very first time Tibet with the Chinese nationwide railway grid. According to Students For A Free Tibet, this Gormo-Lhasa (the world's highest rail service) is part of China's plan known as "Western Development Campaign" and, as the previous railways built in Mongolia and East Turkestan, is meant to speed colonization of the area. Apart from being very expensive, the project -continues Students For A Free Tibet- will cause serious environmental destruction and has no particular benefits for Tibetans. Just a few words are enough: among the 38.000 who are working to build the Gormo-Lhasa line, only 6.000 are Tibetans and most of them earn up to eleven times less than the other employees, who are mostly from China. I suggest yor reading of the whole report by the International Campaign fot Tibet. It removes any doubt.
As Jam Yang wrote on Yahoo! Group "Chinese Internet Research", Canadian firm Nortel Networks Corp. said a few weeks ago that Chinese Railways Ministry has chosen it to provide a digital wireless communications network on the Gormo-Lhasa railway. The decision followed a year-long trial of Nortel's GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communication) for Railways technology in China at altitudes of up to 15,700 feet above sea level, as Nortel specified in a statement some days ago.
The fact is: many human rights activists are now worried Nortel could be helping China to swamp Tibetan culture, giving Chinese the possibility to realize their railway and their (hidden) goal to assimilate Tibet. Obviously, Marion MacKenzie, vice-president of corporate communications at Nortel, categorically rejected that the Canadian firm could be involved in repressing and stifling human rights and freedom of any individual.

But there's more to say. Jam Yang, in another message to "Chinese Internet Research", wrote that Nortel-China Customs deployment will support the state-owned Golden Customs initiative, a nationwide project developed to connect the information networks of the customs and foreign trade sectors.
Nortel has also supplied Golden Taxation, a national information network linking state taxation headquarters with local taxation offices at all levels. Authorities told that Nortel Solutions will protect China Customs Business Critical Information: according to them, Nortel's Optical Metro DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) technology will enable "secure, reliable, real-time data storage". 
But this tecnology seems not to respect data protection: in particular, UK human rights organization (The Omega Foundation) recommended respect in using personal data and the establishment of a specific legislation to protect citizens. But I think China is not worried about.
And Nortel Networks makes its business...

Post: matteomohorovicich a 19:00 | link | commenti |
china

Chinese cyberdissidents: how many and who are they?

Webmaster at boxun.com (a Chinese site banned by authorities because of his "subversive" contents) prefers not to reveal his name. He answered the questions I mailed him about internet censorship and surveillance in China. At reading what he wrote, I felt something of a surprise and bewilderment, expecially in two passages. Here you are my questions and his answers below:

- 63 cyberdissident, according to Reporter sans frontières, are still in jail in China for posting articles or searching for news related to forbidden topics. Your opinion?
  Should be much more than that number, difficult to confirm the exact number. Many writers disappeared and can not be confirmed as they used Pen name. Those writers are not activists, they are people with thoughts, even not necessarily anti-government.

- Can you make me some relevant examples of banned sites? I know some: cicus.org or, for example, your site boxun.com (about human rights) or dajiyuan.com (about Falun Gong spiritual movement).
 Too many sites banned: cnn.com, newyorktimes.com, all news sites outside China are banned (say, if not 100%, 99% news sites). boxun.com should be on the top list - we are not for human rights, we report everything, just independent, we report all things.


Journalist Fons Tuinstra, instead, a foreign correspondent, media trainer, new media advisor and internet entrepreneur in Shanghai, founder and partner of the largest email-service/website on business in China (www.cbiz.cn), at the same first question gives his personal view of cyberdissidents' phenomenon:

 It all depends of course on how you define cyberdissidents. I do not know RSF's definition, nor do I have the list of 63 people and the
reasons why they have been arrested. Most of the arrest that have taken place, with very few exception, were more the old-style dissidents that would use any mean, including the internet, to let the rest of the world know about their thoughts. I see very little of that among the - say - post 1989 generation, who dominates the internet currently. Material life has improved greatly over the past twenty years and the old-style dissidents have very little following among today's youngsters. The internet is still a rather new tool in China, although it has 100 million users and 700,000 webloggers, that is only a very small part of China's population. People are currently discovering what they can or want to do, without getting into trouble. The incidents I know of people who go into trouble are limited, and in most case close to harmless. The internet is giving people an increased freedom that is unprecedented in China. Nobody know at this stage, how that exactly is going to develop.

Post: matteomohorovicich a 22:20 | link | commenti |
china

about Yang Jianli

Christina Fu, the wife of Yang Jianli, a Chinese "cyberdissident" serving a five-year sentence in Beijing for "illegal entering in China" and "spying for Taiwan", answered to the questions I mailed her some weeks ago. She was very kind and brave.
She told me her opinion about her husband's imprisonment. Her words: "I think that the fact that he had been a dissident and was working for a dissident online magazine has a direct effect on his charges and sentences. In the verdict, for the charge of “crossing Chinese border illegally”, he received six month sentence in prison and five years for “spying for Taiwan”, which he will service a combined sentence of five years.  The “spying” conviction is completely attributed to his pro-democracy activities in the U.S.".

Yang Jianli is a Chinese citizen who was expelled from China after taking part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations. He moved to the U.S. and came back for the first time to China in April 2002 to secretly investigate strikes by workers in the North-East. I just told about his charges. Actually he was convicted only because he is the editor in chief of a dissident online magazine, Yi Bao (chinaeweekly.com), and the president of the pro-democracy Foundation for China in the 21st Century.
Christina sent me a biography of Jianli. If you want to know more about him, I suggest your reading. I remind you he's one of the 63 Chinese cyberdissidents still in jail (I took the number from Reporters sans frontières, but maybe they are much more). This number makes China the biggest prison for cyberdissidents in the world.

Dr. Yang Jianli  

Yang Jianli is the president of the Foundation for China in the 21st Century in Boston and a U.S. permanent resident. He was born in Shandong Province in China in July 1963. He holds a doctorate in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley (1991) and a doctorate in political economy and government from Harvard University (2001). His wife, Christina Fu, is a U.S. citizen and a researcher at Harvard Medical School. His two children, 10-year-old Anita and 7-year-old Aaron, are also U.S. citizens.

Dr. Yang came to the United States in 1986 to pursue his first Ph.D. and returned to Beijing in 1989 to participate in the June 4th Tiananmen Square Uprising. After this searing experience, he decided to dedicate his life to the pro-democracy movement. He was elected chairman of the U.S. branch of the largest Chinese overseas pro-democracy organization, the Federation for a Democratic China, which was founded in Paris in October 1989.

Since 1993, his efforts to renew his Chinese passport have failed. In 1994, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China revealed a Chinese government blacklist of 49 dissidents, including Dr. Yang, who were banned to re-enter China.

Dr. Yang was one of the founders of the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, which was established in 1990, and his organization has been a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for Democracy since 1995. The Foundation produces “The Voice of China” radio program, and its Web magazine, ChinaEweekly.com, also known as “Yi Bao”, has more than 250,000 regular readers. Dr. Yang is also the editor in chief for the book series China in the 21st Century.

In 1998, Dr. Yang became president of the Foundation, carrying on its legacy and expanding its involvement. Twice a year, Dr. Yang invited a wide range of experts and scholars from all over the world for in-depth discussions on issues such as the 30th anniversary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution; political parties, politics and the future of China; town elections and Chinese democratization; and globalization and the relationship between the Mainland and Taiwan. In the past two years, Dr. Yang also organized two Interethnic Leadership Conferences with young leaders from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as Chinese ethnic minorities of Mongolians, Muslims, Tibetans and Uyghurs.

Dr. Yang is not only a devoted activist, but also a leading scholar of Chinese democratic constitutional theory. In the mid-1990s, he helped create “the Draft of the Constitution for the Chinese Republic.” In addition, his numerous articles on the studies of Chinese democracy and politics were widely published. Dr. Yang advocates that the overseas Chinese democratic movement follow the principles of “returning to the homeland,” non-violence and democratic election. His ideas have been recognized around the world and are being embraced by his fellows inside and outside of China.

Post: matteomohorovicich a 15:19 | link | commenti |
china

an example of China's censorship

Relevant examples of how well Chinese censorship on the net works. If you enter xinhuanet.com, the official Chinese news agency, and search for "Zhao Ziyang", the former communist leader dead two months ago, you find no significant matches about him. Zhao was placed under house arrest for wading into the students in Tiananmen Square and pleading with them to stop their vigil, while other Chinese leaders declared martial laws and crushed them as "revolutionary". His name is practically absent in the search engine's matches. The only two significant ones say:

1) www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-17 08:04:05

BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Zhao Ziyang has lately suffered from an illness recurrence and his physical condition has stabilized after careful treatment, Xinhua learned Sunday afternoon.     Zhao is still receiving continued careful treatment at the moment. Enditem

2) www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-29 11:01:09

BEIJING, Jan. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Comrade Zhao Ziyang, who passed away on Jan. 17 at the age of 85, was cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing Saturday morning.     On behalf of the leaders of the central authorities, Comrade Jia Qinglin and other senior officials including He Guoqiang, Wang Gang and Hua Jianmin, were at the cemetery to bid farewell to the remains of Comrade Zhao. They also expressed condolences to Zhao's families.     Zhao died of illness in a Beijing hospital after failing to respond to all emergency treatment.     Born in October 1919 in Huaxian County of central China's Henan Province, Comrade Zhao joined the Communist Youth League of China in March 1932 and started his revolutionary career in 1937. He joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in February 1938.     During the years of revolutionary wars and the period of socialist construction, Comrade Zhao successively served as the chief leader of the CPC committees at the county, prefectural and provincial levels. In the early years of China's reform and opening-up drive, he successively held important leading positionsof the CPC Central Committee and the State, making contribution to the cause of the Party and the people. In the political turbulence which took place in the late spring and early summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao committed serious mistakes.     When Comrade Zhao suffered from illness and when his physical condition was turning worse, the central authorities had instructed relevant departments make proper arrangements for his life and treatment. A special medical team was formed to treat his diseases and save his life by every means. In the last days of Comrade Zhao, Comrade Zeng Qinghong had gone to the hospital to visit him on behalf of the leaders of the central authorities.     The General Office and the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the General Office of the State Council, the General Office of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and other departments sent wreaths to the cemetery. Comrade Zhao's families, close-by workers, old friends, representatives from his hometown and the places he once worked in, and representatives from various Party and government departments, also went to the cemetery to bid farewell to his remains. Enditem

For the words "free Tibet" xihuanet.com gives no matches.
With "Taiwan independence", on the other hand, a picture of two cats appears.

Post: matteomohorovicich a 14:00 | link | commenti |
china