A Record That Spins The Other Direction.

The horrible Chinese record on free speech is off the charts. Journalist are often times threatened, followed, monitored, sanctioned and murdered. Those who find themselves in prison end up dead or mentally finished. With such regulation of free speech one wonders the horror hidden from the rest of the world.

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Reporters Without Boarders has released their annual report. It's a good read. Highlights provided here for CFA readers.

China-Annual Report: 2007

Yu Dongyue, who was arrested during the Tiananmen Square massacres of 1989, was released in February but had been driven insane as a result of long periods in solitary confinement. At least 31 journalists were in jail as of 1st January 2007.

Hu Jintao’s voiced rage against “hostile forces", whom he accused of fomenting a "coloured revolution” backed by the United States and led by human rights activists and liberal journalists, when he spoke to an audience of ministers, ambassadors and party provincial officials in August 2006. As preparations got under way for the next Communist Party Congress in October 2007, public security arrested at least 12 journalists and placed scores more under surveillance. This crackdown has also extended to lawyers. In March they were banned by China’s Association of Lawyers from speaking to foreign journalists about “masses incidents”, concerning groups such as the unemployed and the peasants. In September, Chinese judges had the same ban on speaking to the press slapped on them.

The Propaganda Department continues to attack each article deemed to be contrary to the new ideology of a “harmonious society” proclaimed by Hu Jintao. Media editors receive regularly a list of banned subjects. These might be demonstrations by peasants, the unemployed or Tibetans. Nothing escapes the censors, who cultivate a climate of fear within editorial offices. Censorship cases can be measured in their tens of thousands each year.

At the beginning of the year, the Propaganda Department dismissed prominent journalists Li Datong and Lu Yaogang from the weekly Bing Dian. This purge provoked a strong reaction within the profession and the communist party. To quell this defiance, the authorities banned any reference to it, put forums used by journalists under surveillance and sent police officers into editorial offices.

Increasing physical attacks on journalists are no longer being committed only by members of the security forces. Delinquents or henchmen in the pay of businessmen are also involved. Reporters Without Borders has recorded around 40 such incidents. But, according to the official organisation, journalism has become the third most dangerous job after mining and the police. . Two journalists, Wu Xianghu and Xiao Guopeng, were killed by police in 2006.

Millions listen to the BBC and Radio Free Asia programmes in Chinese, but their broadcasts are jammed. In 2006, Reporters Without Borders tested the jamming of Voice of Tibet and Radio Free Asia in Tibet. The authorities overlay programmes on short and medium wave with thudding sounds or educational programmes in Chinese.