Sunday, December 21, 2008

China Continues To Restrict Press Freedom


Chinese authorities have now begun blocking access to NYT website according to China Digital Times in their growing efforts to stifle speech.

Journalists continue to face arrests on dubious allegations according to the Committee to Protect Journalists in one case,
a Reporter went missing for 15 days before being located in a neighboring Province. In a different case on the 04 December, Chinese authorities arrested Li Min, a reporter for CCTV, at her Beijing home.

As China strives to silence speech, they continue to detain Liu Xiaobo who I wrote about on the 09 December here for illegally organizing academic professionals calling for Democratic and Legal reforms.

Jenny Hsu writes today in the Taipei Times, "Given the complex and close ties between Taiwan and China, the Taiwanese public and President Ma Ying
-jeou, have a heavy mandate to defend democratic movements in China and urge the Chinese Communist Party, to immediately release prominent dissident writer Liu Xiaobo..."

Free speech is essential in the pursuit of learning, every idea or thought is not an avenue of incitement, censorship only results in the pursuit of finding cracks in the Great Fire Wall of China.

1 comment:

  1. I don't think they can break out of Communism and into Socialism as they've spoken of... It's a huge, beneficial step for them (Socialism), but a lot of laws and mind-sets (such as with this instance), prevents them from moving forward. They have to change through one action at a time and this is not it.

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