China cracks down on Twitter, other social media

[June 03, 2009]  BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese authorities shut down blogs, Internet forums and social media sites such as Twitter in an apparent attempt to stem online political discussion ahead of Thursday's 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on 1989's Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

As in past years, dissidents were rounded up and shipped out of Beijing and foreign media reports on the protests and continuing calls for an independent investigation into the events of June 3-4, 1989, have been blocked.

However, the cut off of Internet sites marks a new chapter in the authorities' attempts to muzzle dissent, one that testifies to the burgeoning influence of such technology among young Chinese in an authoritarian society where information is tightly controlled.

"There has been a really intensified clampdown on quasi-public discussion of awareness of this event," said Xiao Qiang, adjunct professor of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley, and director of The Berkeley China Internet Project.

China has the world's largest online population, and Internet communities have proven increasingly influential in spreading word of events to everything from student protests to group shopping excursions.

People are going outside the normal, controlled channels to set up communities online, spreading information about campus unrest and other activities that the government considers to be potentially subversive.

Government Internet monitors have shuttered message boards on more than 6,000 Web sites affiliated with colleges and universities, apparently to head off any talk about the 1989 events, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

Numerous blogs maintained by edgy government critics such as avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei have been blocked and the text-messaging service Twitter and pictures on photo sharing site Flikr could not be accessed within China on Wednesday. Video sharing site YouTube has been blocked within China since March.

"We understand the Chinese government is blocking access to Flickr and other international sites, though the government has not issued any explanation," Jason Khoury, spokesman for Yahoo, which owns Flickr. "We believe a broad restriction without a legal basis is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression."

Officials from Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Authorities have been steadily tightening surveillance over China's dissident community ahead of this year's anniversary, with some leading writers already under house arrest for months.

Ding Zilin, a retired professor and advocate for Tiananmen victims whose teenage son was killed in the crackdown, said by telephone a dozen officers blocked her and her husband from leaving their Beijing apartment Wednesday morning.

Another leading dissident voice, Bao Tong, was taken by police to southeastern China over the anniversary, said his son, Bao Pu.

Bao Tong, 76, is the former secretary to Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party leader deposed for sympathizing with the 1989 pro-democracy protesters.

Elsewhere, in the Zhejiang province city of Taizhou, former educator Wu Gaoxing -- jailed for two years after the crackdown -- was taken from his home by agents Saturday, shortly after the publication of a letter he co-signed complaining about economic discrimination against dissidents, according to another of the letter's signatories, Mao Guoliang.

Police were preventing foreign photographers and camera people from entering Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, saying a special pass was required. Over recent days, journalists attempting to film on the square or interview dissidents have been detained for several hours on apparently trumped-up charges of creating disturbances, according to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.

China has never allowed an independent investigation into the military's crushing of the 1989 protests, in which possibly thousands of students, activists and ordinary citizens were killed. The subject remains taboo on the mainland, with officials routinely countering questions about Tiananmen with remarks on how much China has developed and prospered in the years since

.

Overseas monitoring groups estimate 30 men remain imprisoned on charges relating to the protest, and Amnesty International issued an open letter this week to China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, calling for their release.

Despite the official silence on the mainland, the crackdown remains a major topic for human rights groups and pro-democracy supporters in the Chinese-ruled Hong Kong autonomous region, where this year's June 4 vigil is expected to draw tens of thousands.

Despite the former British colony's legal protections and freedom of speech, at least two Tiananmen-era Chinese dissidents have been turned away at Hong Kong airport in recent weeks.

[Associated Press; By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN]

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