Last Saturday evening thousands of people gathered at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to remember those who died in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests which tragically ended in a state-sponsored massacre. The event, which occurs annually on June 4th, is the only such commemoration on Chinese soil.
Tate Modern has posted this message of support for the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained on Sunday at Beijing Airport, on its façade. The British arts organisation is also encouraging people to sign this petition calling for the artist’s release [via CR] who is accused of “economic crimes”.
I recently compiled a list of popular English language sites which are currently blocked, or have been at some point in the past, in China (you can find the most current version on whatblocked.com): What struck me is how this has changed over the past few years; before mainstream news organisations (e.g. BBC) and various activist groups were the clear targets but today this has dramatically shifted towards social media (e.g. Twitter) and services which allow the free sharing of content outside China’s digital borders (e.g. YouTube). Within China clones of sites like Facebook (e.g. RenRen) have been allowed to flourish under the direct control of the government who are free to monitor and censor at will. After the 60th anniversary celebrations at the beginning of…
The west loves to bash China over its lack of freedom of speech but as with all stories there are two sides to the coin, and in this particular case one side has been massively overlooked. Let’s look at the facts – All news media in China is controlled by the government directly or indirectly. Anything which is published or aired has to pass up through a series of editors who are frequently briefed with what can and can’t be said. Usually the top guy is a member of the CCP and any lapse on their part can have severe consequences (demotion / job loss / prison). This is why everything you’ll hear / watch / read in China is full of praise for the Party…
Until today I’ve tried to avoid commenting to much on the anniversary of the events which happened 20 years ago in Beijing because I don’t really feel qualified and not being Chinese am not sure if it’s really my place to do so either. That said I do have very strong feelings about the current issues which have become starkly oblique in the light of the Internet crackdown we are currently experiencing. To me this is all the more staggering considering it’s 2009 and despite the most advanced and pervasive communication networks available to man we are still facing some extremely dark realities within hidden truths. I think the Chinese artist and designer Ai Weiwei puts this best in his recent blog post (translated):…
If you ever wanted to know what it feels like living in the dark ages come to China right about now. Seemingly in timing with the 20th anniversary of the 1989 “incident” (as they call it around here) many popular international websites have been blocked (including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, WordPress, Blogger & Hotmail) and anything that isn’t blocked is loading at a snails pace probably due to extra filtering/monitoring going on. As a citizen of the internet this makes me mad and not just because I can’t share my inane thoughts with random people online any more but because I know full well that the anniversary will pass here and no one will bat an eyelid. Whether they don’t know or don’t care…