CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
🙄 Shameful #Trifecta4Trump: In 44 days, @realdonaldtrump has met with leaders of the 3 worst jailers of journalists: #Egypt, #China & #Turkey.
Online portals permitted to publish stories on sensitive topics only if sourced from government-controlled news agencies
Top Chinese internet portals had been forbidden from producing original reporting on politically sensitive topics in what experts say is the latest step in President Xi Jinping’s battle to bring Chinese journalism under control.
Internet giants including Netease, Sina and Sohu were ordered to pull the plug on their current affairs operations on Monday, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Beijing’s internet watchdog announced.
The popular social media site often provides a platform for journalists and Chinese citizens to discuss news and contentious issues that mainstream press are barred from reporting on. A set of documents provided to CPJ by a former employee in Weibo’s censorship department however, sheds light on how the site must tread a fine line between appeasing government censors and encouraging users to keep posting to its site.
Hong Kong journalists have warned of a serious threat to press freedom in the city state after the abrupt dismissal of a senior newspaper editor who ran a powerful front-page story based on revelations from the Panama Papers.
Ming Pao, one of the city’s most prestigious papers, dismissed chief editor Keung Kwok-yuen on Wednesday, the same day the journalist filled the front page with revelations about Hong Kong celebrities, officials and businessmen.
The paper’s management said the sacking was a cost-cutting measure, but furious journalists accused the owners of a more sinister agenda.
Beijing has stepped up censorship of stories on the world’s biggest ever leak of documents, after relatives of some senior leaders were named among people who had used offshore companies to store their wealth.
Photo: Ming Pao staff holding signs which say ‘the truth is unclear’ outside the Hong Kong newspaper’s headquarters on Wednesday. Photograph: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images
U.S.-based blogger Wen Yunchao told CPJ today he believes that government officials have detained his parents and brother after two weeks of police questioning the family about his alleged connection to an open letter calling on President Xi Jinping to resign.
Wen, a Chinese blogger and freedom of speech advocate who is based in New York, told CPJ that several unidentified people took his parents and younger brother from their homes in Jiexi county, Guangdong province. “My sister-in-law told me this news [today] and she said she has no idea where my brother and parents are now,” Wen said. Police and officials had visited Wen’s family several times in the past two weeks, questioning them about the blogger’s alleged involvement in the publication and dissemination of the open letter, he said. Wen denies any involvement in the letter, which was published on Wujie News (Watching News)on March 4.
The popular social media site often provides a platform for journalists and Chinese citizens to discuss news and contentious issues that mainstream press are barred from reporting on. A set of documents provided to CPJ by a former employee in Weibo’s censorship department however, sheds light on how the site must tread a fine line between appeasing government censors and encouraging users to keep posting to its site.
Druklo, who goes by only one name, was convicted Wednesday of inciting separatism and endangering social stability through his writing, according toreports. The blogger, who has been in custody since March last year, was sentenced by a court in Huangnan prefecture in China’s northwestern Qinghai province,reports said. Druklo’s family was allowed to attend the hearing but it was unclear if he was allowed access to a lawyer, Tibet Post International reported.
After his arrest last year, friends of the blogger, who writes under the name Shokjang, said they believed authorities targeted him for his blog and social media posts about Tibet, including the increased presence of armed security forces, political repression by the Chinese authorities, and environmental degradation, according to Tibet Post International and Radio Free Asia.
Typically, news organizations like to promote original reporting. When an outlet covers a breaking news event at the time and from the place where the event is happening, they want their audience to know. However, for Chinese commercial media that covered this weekend’s presidential election in Taiwan, this was apparently not the case.
Image: Tsai Ing-wen, center, declares victory in the presidential election in Taipei on January 16, 2016. (AP/Wally Santana)
“Due to some urgent matters that I need to handle and that aren’t to be revealed to the public, I have made way own way back to the mainland…” read a handwritten letter faxed into a bookstore in Hong Kong last Wednesday. “It might take a bit of time. My current situation is very well. All is normal.”
While just under 200 journalists are behind bars, CPJ witnessed several memorable releases in 2015, including in Vietnam, Ethiopia, and even secretive Eritrea. Some of the journalists had spent years behind bars; they endured isolation and several say they were tortured. This year, CPJ’s advocacy contributed to the release of at least 31 journalists. Some of their stories are shown here. [Captions with photos]