Annual Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in China ...

<strong>Annual</strong> <strong>Report</strong> on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in China (2009)April 26, 2010Human Rights Action Plan reiterates the promise to protect citizens’ “right to information,participation, expression and supervision,” the Chinese government remained vigilant incensoring the media and the internet during the past year. It continued to be extremelydifficult and risky for HRDs to collect, disseminate, discuss, and release human rightsrelatedinformation.While the situation regarding traditional media remained relatively unchanged from 2008,the internet was a much more dynamic medium in the past year. Increased usage of newtools, such as Twitter, coupled with ongoing efforts to circumvent censorship by netizens,meant that the internet remained a viable tool for documenting rights abuses,disseminating information and mobilizing activists. Wary of developments taking placeonline, the government instituted a number of policies and efforts to increase its controlover the flow of information and its surveillance over millions of internet users. Thoughnetizens were sporadically successful in using the internet to combat official malfeasance,their victories were balanced out by several high-profile arrests and convictions of humanrights defenders primarily for their online activism and reporting.1. Print media and publicationsPrint media and publications continued to be subjected to two longstanding mechanismsof control in 2009. First, laws and administrative regulations issued by the central andlocal governments placed various restrictions on the functioning of the media. In addition,the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Propaganda Department and its counterparts atvarious levels issued concrete “Party policies” and “instructions” directly to the media inresponse to specific news items, banning sensitive information and manipulating theinterpretation of news items to promote the image of the Party. For example, thePropaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee 28 issued an order prohibitingSouthern Weekend, a Guangzhou-based newspaper, from publishing its exclusiveinterview with US President Barack Obama on the paper’s website. The interview wasprinted in the November 19 hard-copy edition of the paper as scheduled, but it wasbelieved to be heavily redacted. 29 The top editor of the newspaper was subsequentlydemoted in December. 30When newsworthy stories break and are quickly circulated on the internet, the pressmight arrive at the scene before the Propaganda Department has time to decide onwhether or not to ban their reporting. In these cases, embarrassed local officialssometimes resort to violence to stop journalists from reporting. For example, in late May,two journalists, Kong Pu ( from the Beijing News 31 and Wei Yi ( fromSouthern People’s Weekly 32 traveled to Yesanguan Town in Badong County, Hubei卫 孔Province to interview relatives of Deng Yujiao ( a young woman who became aninternet hero after killing a local official and stabbing another as they were trying to rapeher. In the midst of the interview, a group of men who identified themselves as localofficials appeared, accused the journalists of “damaging” the town’s image, beat the twojournalists and confiscated their belongings. 33邓13璞 )毅 )), 娇 玉