Tag Archives: Censorship

China cyber watchdog rejects censorship critics, says internet must be ‘orderly’

China cyber watchdog rejects censorship critics, says internet must be 'orderly'

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s top cyber authority on Thursday rejected a recent report ranking it last out of 65 countries for press freedom, saying the internet must be “orderly” and the international community should join it in addressing fake news and other cyber issues.

Ren Xianliang, vice minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), said the rapid development of the country’s internet over two decades is proof of its success and that it advocates for the free flow of information.

“We should not just make the internet fully free, it also needs to be orderly… The United States and Europe also need to deal with these fake news and rumors” Ren told journalists without elaborating.

China enforces strict internet censorship rules, which have hardened this year with new restrictions on media outlets and surveillance measures for social media sites.

On Tuesday, U.S. NGO Freedom House released an annual report ranking China last in terms of internet freedom for the third year in a row, criticizing censorship activity targeting ethnic minorities, media and regular citizens.

The report also said the manipulation of social media had undermined elections in 18 countries over the past year.

This year China brought in new rules banning virtual private networks (VPNs) and other methods used to circumvent the country’s Great Firewall, which blocks foreign social media and news sites in the country.

The Cyberspace Administration also introduced laws making members of messaging app groups legally liable for content deemed offensive to socialist values.

It comes as China prepares to host the World Internet Conference, the country’s top public cyber policy forum, next month, where members of international governments and the UN will join local officials for a series of discussions on cyber governance.

Several foreign tech firms will also attend the event, including representatives from Facebook Inc, which is blocked behind the Great Firewall but used regularly abroad by Chinese state media outlets.

Ren on Thursday said China welcomed foreign firms to work in the country, on the condition that they abide by local rules and regulations.

(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

China seeks to silence critics at U.N. forums: rights body report

FILE PHOTO: Pro-democracy demonstrators hold up portraits of Chinese disbarred lawyer Jiang Tianyong, demanding his release, during a demonstration outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, China December 23, 2016. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Beijing is waging a campaign of harassment against Chinese activists who seek to testify at the United Nations about repression, while the world body sometimes turns a blind eye or is even complicit, Human Rights Watch said.

In a report released on Tuesday, the group said China restricts travel of activists, or photographs or films them if they do come to the U.N. in Geneva to cooperate with human rights watchdogs scrutinizing its record.

“What we found is that China is systematically trying to undermine the U.N.’s ability to defend human rights, certainly in China but also globally,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

“This comes at a point where domestically China’s repression is the worst it has been since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement (in 1989). So there is much to hide and China clearly attaches enormous importance to muting criticism of its increasingly abysmal human rights record.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang dismissed the report’s accusations as “groundless”, saying Beijing was playing an active role in the United Nations’ human rights work.

“We urge the relevant organization to remove their tinted lenses and objectively and justly view China’s human rights development,” he told a regular briefing.

Rolando Gomez, U.N. Human Rights Council spokesman, said the office did its best to protect all participants and had been “extremely vigilant in addressing and investigating all acts and perceived acts of intimidation, threats, and attacks brought to its attention”, regardless of which state committed them.

The U.N. system offers one of the few remaining channels for Chinese activists to express their views, the New York-based rights group said.

Its report, “The Costs of International Advocacy: China’s Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms,” is based on 55 interviews.

“NIP-IT-IN-THE-BUD STRATEGY”

“(Chinese President) Xi Jinping seems to have adopted a ‘nip it in the bud’ strategy with respect to activism at home, but increasingly abroad. That’s one of our messages, China’s repression isn’t stopping at its borders these days,” Roth said.

In China, activists have “decreasing space safe” from intimidation, arbitrary detention, and a legal system controlled by the Communist Party, the report said, decrying a crackdown on activists and lawyers since 2015.Some activists who have attended U.N. reviews of China’s record have been punished on their return, it said. Others have their passports confiscated or are arrested before departure.

When Xi addressed the U.N. in Geneva in January, the U.N. barred non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from attending, Human Rights Watch said.

Dolkun Isa, an ethnic Uighur rights activist originally from China, was attending a U.N. event in New York in April when U.N. security guards ejected him without explanation, despite his accreditation, it added.

Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer, disappeared last November, months after meeting in Beijing with U.N. special rapporteur on poverty Philip Alston who has called for his release.

Jiang, after being held incommunicado for six months, was charged with subversion. At his trial last month he confessed, saying that he had been inspired to overthrow China’s political system by workshops he had attended overseas.

“So the signal is clear – don’t you dare present an independent perspective to a U.N. investigator,” Roth said.

(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by John Stonestreet)

China holds drill to shut down ‘harmful’ websites

Computer code is seen on a screen above a Chinese flag in this July 12, 2017 illustration photo. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration

By Sijia Jiang

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China held a drill on Thursday with internet service providers to practice taking down websites deemed harmful, as the country’s censors tighten control ahead of a sensitive five-yearly political reshuffle set to take place later this year.

Internet data centers (IDC) and cloud companies – which host website servers – were ordered to participate in a three-hour drill to hone their “emergency response” skills, according to at least four participants that included the operator of Microsoft’s cloud service in China.

China’s Ministry of Public Security called for the drill “in order to step up online security for the 19th Party Congress and tackle the problem of smaller websites illegally disseminating harmful information”, according to a document circulating online attributed to a cyber police unit in Guangzhou.

An officer who answered the phone in the Guangzhou public security bureau confirmed the drill but declined to elaborate.

President Xi Jinping has overseen a tightening of China’s cyberspace controls, including tough new data surveillance and censorship rules. This push is now ramping up ahead of an expected consolidation of power at the Communist Party Congress this autumn.

The drill asked internet data centers to practice shutting down target web pages speedily and report relevant details to the police, including the affected websites’ contact details, IP address and server location.

China’s cyberspace administration declined to comment, saying it was not the correct department to address the question to. China’s Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Several service providers, including 21Vianet Group and VeryCloud, issued notices to users, warning of possible temporary service disruptions on Thursday afternoon as a result of the drill, which were confirmed to Reuters by their customer service representatives.

Nasdaq-listed 21 Vianet Group is China’s largest carrier-neutral internet data center services provider according to its website, and counts many Western multinationals including Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and HP among its clients. It runs Microsoft’s Azure-based services in China.

21 Vianet Group did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

China has been tightening its grip on the internet, including a recent drive to crack down on the usage of VPNs to bypass internet censorship, enlisting the help of state-owned telecommunication service providers to upgrade the so-called Great Firewall.

Apple last week removed VPN apps from its app store, while Amazon’s China partner warned users not to use VPNs.

(Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Additional reporting by Susan Gao and Jasper Ng in HONG KONG and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Mark Potter)

Egyptian government bans scores of news websites in growing censorship crackdown

By Eric Knecht and Nadine Awadalla

CAIRO (Reuters) – An often fiery government critic, Egyptian journalist Khaled al-Balshi has been arrested, had his operations monitored, and staff harassed by police for years. Yet his website Al-Bedaiah, a rare dissident voice in Egypt, had never been touched.

On Sunday that changed when it suddenly went blank with no warning after being blocked, part of what Balshi called an unprecedented and far-reaching state crackdown on scores of news websites in recent weeks.

“Let’s be clear, the Egyptian websites going through this are dealing with a long-term shutdown — this is not short term,” said Balshi from his downtown Cairo office, where four work stations sat idle, because staff feared coming to work in case of arrest.

Balshi’s website was the 57th blocked since May 24, according to the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, a non-government organization tracking the affected sites through software that monitors outages.

Journalists see the campaign against them as a step toward banning all but the most state-aligned media, effectively reversing the private media boom that flourished in the final decade of former president Hosni Mubarak’s rule and which they say helped push him from power in 2011.

Though no precise figures on readership are available, Egypt enjoys an active private media that includes widely read print and web format publications as well as popular late-night talk shows. State newspapers still maintain wide circulation.

The spike in censorship has come as a surprise, even to journalists long-accustomed to reporting within strict red lines in Egypt where direct criticism of the military, the president, and judiciary are considered taboo and punishable by jail time.

The government has offered no comment on the reason behind the blockages and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology had no immediate comment.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Makram Mohamed Ahmed, head of the newly formed Supreme Media Council, a state media regulator, told Reuters he believes “the main reason is how much [these websites] deal with the Muslim Brotherhood or express support for terrorism,” referring to the Islamist group whose president Mohamed Mursi held office for a year before being ousted in 2013 by the military after mass protests.

But the blockages have also hit Mada Masr, a self-described progressive outlet with no Islamist ties, as well as the widely read Al-Borsa, a financial newspaper favored by the largely pro-government business community.

“If they did something more grave like arresting team members or me it would make big noise, whereas blocking the website is the best way to paralyze us without paying a high price for it,” Lina Atallah, editor of Mada Masr, told Reuters.

Some journalists say a presidential election in 2018 means Egypt is doubling down on press restrictions, a move intended to ensure opposition candidates have few spaces to challenge general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is widely expected to run for a second term.

“There are people getting ready to nominate themselves for the presidency and they have to make their voices heard or else they won’t be competitive,” said Adel Sabry, the editor-in-chief of Masr al-Arabia, a website blocked last month.

“[The goal] is that it’s just one voice,” said editor-in-chief of Al-Borsa, Hussein Abd Rabo, who said his paper could be closed any day.

FILE PHOTO: Masked Egyptian security forces walk by a demonstration held by journalists and activists against the detention of journalists, in front of the Press Syndicate in Cairo, Egypt April 26, 2016. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo

RED SEA ISLANDS

When Balshi’s website was wiped from Egyptian screens seven of its eight most read articles dealt with the same hot-button issue: a controversial accord transferring two Red Sea islands to Egypt’s top benefactor, Saudi Arabia. The measure is expected to be voted on within days by parliament.

Like another website blocked on Sunday, El Badil, Balshi’s has provided a platform for critics of the deal who argue that the islands are Egyptian territory, a point of view that sparked rare street protests last year calling for the accord’s cancellation.

Balshi and other journalists believe the wave of censorship is meant to neutralize debate on an issue that opposition figures say has already eroded some of Sisi’s support among voters who consider ceding sovereign territory unacceptable.

“I insist that we remain a voice, no matter what. And that we try to preserve our space. I think it should be done even as a suicide mission,” said Balshi. “What can we do?”

(Reporting by Eric Knecht and Nadine Awadalla; Additional reporting by Mohamed Abdellah, editing by Peter Millership)

Turkish court rejects Wikipedia’s appeal over website’s blocking: Anadolu

Turkish court bans Wikipedia

ANKARA (Reuters) – A Turkish court on Friday rejected an appeal by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia against a government decision to block access to its website, the state-run Anadolu news agency said, a case that has heightened concerns about censorship in Turkey.

An Ankara court rejected the appeal from the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, Anadolu said. It quoted the court as saying that while freedom of speech was a fundamental right, it can be limited in cases where there is a “necessity for regulation”.

Turkey’s telecommunications watchdog said last week that access to Wikipedia had been blocked, citing a law allowing it to ban access to websites deemed a threat to national security.

The block on the site was prompted by two Wikipedia entries accusing Turkey of links to Islamist militant groups, local media have reported. The communications ministry has said Wikipedia was attempting to run a “smear campaign” against the country, saying some articles purported that Ankara was coordinating with militant groups.

The Wikimedia Foundation has called for the Turkish government to restore full access to the site.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan)

China tightens rules on online news, network providers

A map of China is seen through a magnifying glass on a computer screen showing binary digits in Singapore in this January 2, 2014 photo illustration. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

BEIJING (Reuters) – China on Tuesday issued tighter rules for online news portals and network providers, the latest step in President Xi Jinping’s push to secure the internet and maintain strict party control over content.

Xi has made China’s “cyber sovereignty” a top priority in his sweeping campaign to bolster security. He has also reasserted the ruling Communist Party’s role in limiting and guiding online discussion.

The new regulations, released by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on its website, extend restrictions on what news can be produced and distributed by online platforms, requiring all services to be managed by party-sanctioned editorial staff.

The rules, which come into effect on June 1, apply to all political, economic, military, or diplomatic reports or opinion articles on blogs, websites, forums, search engines, instant messaging apps and all other platforms that select or edit news and information, the administration said.

All such platforms must have editorial staff who are approved by the national or local government internet and information offices, while their workers must get training and reporting credentials from the central government, it said.

Editorial work must be separate from business operations and only public funds can be used to pay for any work, it added.

Under the rules, editorial guidance measures used for the mainstream media will be applied to online providers to ensure they too adhere to the party line, such as requiring “emergency response” measures to increase vetting of content after disasters.

The rules also stipulate that a domestic business that wants to set up a joint venture with a foreign partner, or accept foreign funding, must be assessed by the State Internet Information Office.

Content on China’s internet has never been free of government censorship, though a number of internet companies run news portals that produce relatively independent reporting and opinion pieces.

A number of these platforms were shut down last year, after Xi in April called in a speech for better regulation of China’s internet.

The CAC separately on Tuesday released another set of rules that on June 1 will require “network providers and products” used by people who might touch upon “national security and the public interest” go through a new round of security reviews.

Beijing adopted a cyber security law last year that overseas critics say could shut foreign businesses out of various sectors in China.

(Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. blacklists North Korean officials over rights abuses

Kim Jong Un leader of North Korea leading a meeting

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department has added seven senior North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, to its sanctions list because of human rights abuses and censorship by the communist nation.

The department said in a statement on Wednesday that its Office of Foreign Assets Control added six men and one woman, all officials of the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, along with the Ministry of Labor and the State Planning Commission, to the Specially Designated Nationals List.

“The North Korean regime not only engages in severe human rights abuses, but it also implements rigid censorship policies and conceals its inhumane and oppressive behavior,” acting OFAC Director John Smith said in the statement, adding that the move aimed to expose the individuals responsible for the abuses.

The U.S. State Department said in a separate statement that the action coincided with the release of its second report on North Korean human rights abuses and censorship, which it called among the worst in the world.

Pyongyang “continues to commit extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor, and torture. Many of these abuses are committed in the political prison camps, where an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 individuals are detained, including children and family members of those subject to persecution and censorship,” the State Department statement said.

Among seven individuals on the Treasury Department blacklist is Kim Yo Jong, 27, who it said is the younger sister of leader Kim Jong Un, as well as the vice director of the Workers’ Party of Korea Propaganda and Agitation Department.

Also on the list is Minister of State Security Kim Won Hong, whose agency the department said “engages in torture and inhumane treatment of detainees during interrogation and in the country’s network of political prison camps.”

(Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Writing by Eric Walsh; Editing by Tom Brown and Steve Orlofsky)

Kickstarter Censors Group Seeking To Make Pro-Life Film

The crowd-funding site Kickstarter is being accused of censoring a group of filmmakers who are planning a movie about the abortion house of horrors controlled by convicted murder Kermit Gosnell.

The filmmakers say that Kickstarter told them describing the acts committed by Gosnell in the movie’s description were a violation of the site’s terms of service.

“We ask that the phrase ‘1000s of babies stabbed to death’ and similar language be modified or removed from the project,” wrote a Kickstarter representative in one of their communications with the group.

Phelim McAleer, one of the producers of the film, said that while Kickstarter objected to their references to abortion, the site allowed 16 projects that involve stabbings, 5 projects about incest, 44 about rape and 28 that have the F-word in the title.

Kickstarter told the National Review on Friday that they had approved the project as submitted despite the e-mails shown by the filmmakers that show they were told to censor their wording.