China - Annual report 2005

The government continued its privatisation of the media and kept up its
ruthless harassment of reformist journalists. The written press,
experiencing competition for the first time, took some chances but was
monitored and sanctioned by the propaganda department. With at least 27
journalists in prison, China was at 1st January 2005, the world's largest
prison for journalists.

"China is deprived of the right to press freedom, does not permit political
divergence and bans all media independence. Its political progress lags well
behind its economic development and evolving attitudes," said the
intellectual Liu Xiaobo, winner of the Reporters Without Borders - Fondation
de France 2004 press freedom award.
A flourishing written press is monitored by the Propaganda Department, now
renamed the Publicity Department. Newspaper editors enjoy every freedom to
boost profits, through advertising, updating their publications or even
raising capital on the stock exchange. But they have to fall in with the
orders of the communist party and ensure that their staff operate a system
of self-censorship.

The Beijing Youth Daily, China's second highest circulation newspaper was
quoted on the Hong Kong stock exchange in December 2004. But the newspaper
remains under the control of the Communist Youth League. Its editor explains
its success thus, "As long as we respect the law, we can report on what
interests people." This forced privatisation has pushed more than 600
publications into closure while the system of compulsory subscriptions to
the official press is on its way out.
The government has deployed huge resources to maintain the monopoly of state
radio and television CCTV and the press agency Xinhua. Systems such as a
"great wall of sound" allowing it to scramble international radio were
stepped up. With the help of French company Thalès, ALLISS aerials were set
up in every corner of the country to block foreign radio waves. The few
Chinese television stations that criticise the government, on cable or
satellite, have been harassed. New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV), accused of
supporting the Falungong movement, has been targeted by the Beijing
authorities since its launch in February 2002. The operator of New Skies
Satellites buckled under constant pressure and ended the channel's
broadcasts in China. And Chinese diplomats leaned on their French
counterparts once NDTV was again beamed into Asia via the Paris-based
Eutelsat W5 satellite. In July, the administration launched a campaign
against the installation of illegal satellite dishes to block broadcast of
"reactionary, violent and pornographic" programmes. Thousands of dishes have
already been removed from homes.

Fear is also a useful instrument of control for the communist party. Such
was the case with the arrest of management figures on the reformist daily
Nanfang Dushi Bao that sent a shock wave through the profession. The nearly
six months of detention experienced by Cheng Yizhong, star editor of this
bold Guangdong-based newspaper, reminded everyone of the lines not to cross.
The newspaper had carried an investigation about a student who was tortured
to death in a Guangdong police station and revealed a new case of the Sars
epidemic in the city without waiting for official permission. Cheng Yizhong
was released but expelled from the communist party and did not get his job
back. Two of his colleagues, Yu Huafeng and Li Minying, who were handed down
harsh prison sentences, are still in prison.

National and international protests probably contributed to the release in
2004 of Liu Jingsheng, founder of the underground review Tansuo
(Exploration), after 12 years in prison, and that of South Korean
photographer Jae-hyun Seok, sentenced to two years for his coverage of North
Korean refugees in China, and the reduction in sentence for journalist Wu
Shishen sentenced to life imprisonment in April 1993, on the orders of the
former president Jiang Zemin for having "illegally divulged state secrets".

On the other hand, nothing could prevent journalist Yu Dongyue, detained
after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, from descending into
madness. A former fellow inmate, who fled China, said the journalist had
been tied to an electric post and left in the hot sun for several days and
then held in solitary confinement for two years.

Police continued to harass dissident journalists, including Shi Tao who was
arrested on 24 November 2004 for having "divulged confidential state
intelligence". Police raided his home without official authorisation,
arrested him and seized his computer and papers. Before leaving they warned
his wife not to tell anyone, particularly not the media, or her husband
would be maltreated.

The most common sanctions are dismissal or being sidelined at work. This was
the experience of Xiao Weibi, editor of the magazine Tong Zhou Gong Jin, who
was sacked in September for carrying an interview with a former communist
party leader in Quangdong, who backed political reform. Five of the six
members of the magazine's advisory committee resigned in protest. Wang
Guangze, of the bi-weekly Ershiyi shiji jingji baodao, was sidelined by the
newspaper on 23 November, after returning from a visit to the United States.

Defamation cases and physical attacks are a new means of applying pressure
favoured by local authorities and private companies. Dozens of journalists
have been brought before the courts or received visits from henchmen when
they show too much interest in investigating fraud in a country that is
riddled with corruption.

Press freedom's number one enemy is however the Publicity Department, which
is under the direct control of the communist party central committee. Unable
to censor everything, it regularly orders journalists not to write about the
more sensitive political and social issues. It is also responsible for
ensuring silence on the major taboo subjects. Fifteen years after the
Tiananmen Square massacre, it is still forbidden to use the term "4 June" in
the press or online. Censors have their fingers permanently on the off
switch ready to cut off foreign television broadcasts. At any mention of the
event, or indeed many other subjects, screens are blacked out in hotel rooms
and homes of foreign residents - the only ones to have legal access to TV
channels such as CNN or BBC. Numerous events attracted censorship last year
and included pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, the serial killer Ma
Jiajue, rioting between Han Chinese and Muslims in Henan Province, strikes
in the north-east and so on…

The Publicity Department also aims to keep dissident and other intellectual
critics out of the press through a blacklist. In November, it ordered the
official media not to publish articles from six reformist political
commentators, particularly Jiao Guobiao, who in March posted an online tract
in which he said, "The Propaganda Ministry has become a bastion of stupidity
and of China's most retrograde forces (…) If it is allowed to do damage with
impunity, it will delay the progress of Chinese political culture and
completely discredit millions of Chinese intellectuals. That is why one
should rise up against the Propaganda Ministry and attack it".

With three years to go to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the Chinese
authorities have not always kept their promise to allow foreign journalists
to work freely. As well as blocking dozens of foreign news site, public
security closely watches foreign correspondents and has no hesitation in
arresting, threatening or striking those who violate the sacrosanct "Guide
for correspondents working in China". In August, journalists working for
British daily The Guardian and Finland's Helsingin Sanomat were arrested for
breaching Article 15 of the guide that bans conducting interviews without
prior authorisation. In February, police just outside Beijing arrested a
crew from French TV channel France 2 for filming poultry immunisations
during the bird flu epidemic. Before releasing them, police forced them to
sign a paper in which they acknowledged they had been "filming secretly".
Police beat up foreign press photographers covering a football match in
August.

The Beijing authorities have also attempted to get the Hong Kong media to
fall into step with the rest of China. Since October, the Chinese national
anthem has been played for every news bulletin. Threats against three well
known radio presenters, with links to the democratic opposition, forced them
to resign at the start of the year.
Despite everything, the press has grown bolder in challenging officials
about social issues and disasters such as the death of 166 miners in Shaanxi
Province in November. "Why are the unions struck dumb when there are
accidents in the mines ?" asked a headline in the daily Dahe Bao in Henan
Province.

Courageous editors have been urging their reporters to shake off their
fears. Before his arrest, Cheng Yizhong rallied his staff with the following
remarks : "Our work has nothing of the commonplace about it. Our cause is to
move heaven and earth (…) It is a steep road to the pinnacle of the Chinese
press. Our ambition, our extraordinary idealism clashes with the ugliness
and dirtiness of social reality." But fear stalked the profession again
after the conviction on 20 October for "divulging state secrets" of Zhao
Yan, who worked with the US daily, the New York Times, previously a
respected journalist on the weekly Reform in China. He risks the death
penalty.

Much mo
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