China to Try One Rights Lawyer as European Diplomats Visit Family of Another

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European diplomats visit the parents of detained rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong at their home in Xinyang city, Henan province, Dec. 19, 2016.

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan are preparing to try a top lawyer on subversion and public order charges, amid an ongoing crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists nationwide. Continue reading

Press Freedom in China Bulletin: December

media-violations-2016Welcome to IFJ Asia-Pacific’s monthly Press Freedom in China e-bulletin. The next bulletin will be sent on January, 2017. Continue reading

Activist, Writer Held on Spying, Subversion Charges in China’s Sichuan

 

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Sichuan rights activists Yang Xiuqiong (L) and Huang Qi (R) in photo taken before their detention, Feb. 18, 2016. Photo courtesy of activist Li Zhaoxiu.

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have formally arrested the founder of a rights website on state secrets charges while detaining a writer who criticized widespread air pollution on suspicion of subversion. Continue reading

Chinese Rights Activist ‘Tortured’ in Police Detention: Lawyers

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Wu Gan stages protest outside Jiangxi High Court, May 19, 2015. Photo courtesy of Boxun

Detained rights activist Wu Gan, known by his online nickname “The Butcher,” has suffered torture while being held under investigation in a police detention center in the northern port city of Tianjin, his lawyers have complained after visiting him last week. Continue reading

China Bans User-Made, ‘Unlicensed’ Video, Audio From Social Media

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China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television holds political study meeting, Nov. 21, 2016. Public Domain.

China’s powerful media regulator has banned social media platforms like WeChat, and the Twitter-like Weibo services run by Sina and Tencent, from disseminating user-generated audio and video, in a move that appears to be aimed at stifling citizen reporting in a country where all news is controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Continue reading

Kerry Brown: Centrifugal Empire: Central Local Relations in China by Jae Ho Chung

central-local-relations-in-chinaThe dynamics between the central administration in imperial Chinese dynasties and local levels of administration since the first unification under the short lived Qin in 220 BCE and the ways in which the shadow of these persist to this day is an enormous subject. It is curious, as Jae Ho Chung points out in the preamble to this short but intense and highly rewarding monograph, why so little attention has been paid to this subject. Continue reading

China Holds 38 Journalists Behind Bars in 2016: Press Freedom Group

tianwang-human-rights-website-founder-huang-qiNearly 40 journalists are currently behind bars amid an ongoing crackdown by the ruling Chinese Communist Party on the media this year, according to a new report from a U.S.-based press freedom group. Continue reading

Writers on the 2016 US Election: Shenaz Patel

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Shenaz Patel is a Mauritian writer and a 2016 resident of the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa.

As islanders, we know how attentive we have to be to signs when a cyclone approaches.

Will I dare say it aloud? But then, everything about “politically correct” seems thrown to the dogs these days. And perhaps the core of the problem is we’ve had an overdose of political correctness, which has drugged the capacity to see, and hear, and feel. Continue reading