China

You wouldn’t have heard it from her, but Hu Shuli resigned from her post as editor of Caijing magazine on Monday. The battle over political coverage and finances at Caijing (cai is  “finance” and jing is “economics”) had been reported for about three months, but the missing component in the coverage was Hu herself—she has never made a public statement about what was going on at what was most likely China’s most provocative yet mainstream magazine (it’s a biweekly.) Wang Shuo, Caijing’s managing editor, posted his resignation on his Twitter page. Wang said almost all the other top editors who hadn’t already left are leaving too. 

Dear President Obama: We are heartened by news reports that you plan to talk to Chinese leaders about human rights and related issues when you visit the country next week. On World Press Freedom Day in May, you specifically raised the cases of two of China’s jailed journalists—Shi Tao, imprisoned for allegedly “leaking state secrets,” and Hu Jia, behind bars for alleged “incitement to subvert state power.” Both men remain jailed, and we ask that you now press for their immediate release.

A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate...

New York, October 30, 2009—Chinese police have reportedly arrested two Uighur journalists who published online about Uighur issues in Xinjiang, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Chinese authorities blamed local and international Uighur Web sites for fueling July's ethnic violence, according to international news reports. ...

New York, September 30, 2009—National Day celebrations on Thursday will be marred by extensive media restrictions in China, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The public holiday marks the founding of the People’s Republic of China by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949...

Chinese authorities assaulted three journalists from the Japanese Kyodo News agency in a Beijing hotel room on September 18, 2009, according to international news reports. ...

New York, September 22, 2009—The Chinese government should stop censoring Web sites and protect Internet users from cyber attacks in advance of upcoming National Day celebrations, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. October 1 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. ...

Madeline Earp, CPJ Asia research associate, testified in Washington today before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at a public hearing on “China’s Media and Information Controls: The Impact in China and the United States.” ...

The Chinese government backed away on Thursday from its attempt to mandate censorship software, "Green Dam" and "Youth Escort," on personal computers, a move that was previously delayed. Ministry of Industry and Information Technology official Li Yizhong denied there was ever an intention to require pre-installation of the programs on...

While the general trend in China is toward a more open environment, there is a tendency toward "soft harassment" by police, who threaten retribution to sources and news assistants for helping foreign journalists rather than interfering directly with the journalists themselves. ...