China's Repression of the Freedom of the Press
Article 35 of the China's Constitution guarantees the freedom of the press, at least in theory. In reality, however, freedom of the press in China means the freedom to report as directed by the Communist Party, which still sees the media as part of its propaganda apparatus and engages in repression via a variety of measures, including the following:
• All press organizations remain under the authority of the Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department (CPD), which issues both general guidelines and specific "Do Not Report" orders on news items that it deems unfavorable to the Party.
• China's press organizations that don't tow the Party's line are shut, while foreign organizations risk losing access to the Chinese market. In 2002, Yahoo China was forced to hand over email account details that led to a 10-year jail term for a dissident who had been emailing newsletters to expose government propaganda. In 2005, Microsoft China deleted the blog of a respected journalist as ordered by the Chinese government. Today, Microsoft's Chinese blogging service still filters blogs deemed to be unfriendly to the government, while Google's Chinese search engine filters government-unfriendly websites.
• Reporters are paid low base salaries and high bonuses whose amount depends on the number of reports that make it past the in-house and CPD censors. To support themselves financially, reporters need to file reports that please the censors.
• Whenever foreign journalists want to cover a story outside of Beijing, they need to get advance permission from the local government, which means it can forbid the coverage or prepare in advance so that the foreign journalists see what the local government wants them to see. Fearing the delays in dealing with coverage requests from the surge of 30,000 journalists expected in China for the Olympics and the negative press coverage such delays will instigate, China recently relaxed this rule temporarily until October of 2008. But foreign journalists still won't be able to roam around with complete freedom since they now have to hire local "guides" appointed by the local government.
• Western foreign journalists who offend the Chinese government are expelled. Asian foreign journalists can face jail time. Chinese journalists who offend are demoted or fired, beaten by thugs or the police, or tried on trumped up charges and jailed. Since 1999, more reporters have remained behind bars in China than in any other country in the world.
Out of 166 countries surveyed in 2003 for the freedom of the press, China ranked 6th-to-last, lower than Iran, Syria and Sudan. Only such model democracies as North Korea, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos and Burma ranked lower than China.
Our Request to China:
1. Release all journalists imprisoned for their work, and stop threatening, beating and imprisoning them for telling the truth.
2. Allow media organizations to pay their reporters decent salaries so that they can live on telling the truth instead of pleasing the censors.
3. Eliminate the requirement for foreign journalists to hire local guides to cover stories outside Beijing, and permanently waive the need to get local government permission for such coverage.
4. Stop using blogging, search engine and other online companies as instruments to silence political dissidents.
Relevant Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6M7NzTrrzs&mode=related&search=
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/politics/2005/03/29/China_Media/
http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2007/Falling_Short/China/china.pdf
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8247
http://newsblaze.com/story/20070809070558tsop.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e8aa991a-4441-11dc-90ca-0000779fd2ac.html
http://www.cijmalaysia.org/display_story.asp?ID=506