Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Censorship Protests in China

Well, looky here:
Protests by journalists over alleged heavy-handed censorship at one of China's most daring newspapers have garnered high-profile support in the media and blogosphere, with prominent academics, bloggers and even movie stars joining in. 
... On Monday, several hundred protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the Southern Weekly newspaper in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, to vent their anger at the reworking of a New Year's editorial that originally called for greater legal rights but ended up as a celebration of the government's achievements.
Here also are quotations from two people at the protest:
"Readers should decide whether content is good or bad. It isn't for officials to judge," said Ah Qiang, a writer and public-rights activist who attended Monday's protest. "Everyone knows about media censorship, and for the most part everyone has learned to deal with it. But this time they crossed a line and that caused people to unleash a lot of pent-up frustration." 
"I was deeply moved," said Ye Du, a dissident writer who spent 2½ hours at the protest before being forcibly taken home by state security agents. "This wasn't just about Southern Weekly. It was about Chinese people's desire for more political freedom."

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