Amid Newspaper Standoff, China Keeps Tight Grip On Media
In China, one struggle over censorship has been defused — for the moment, at least.
Journalists at one of the country's boldest newspapers have published a new issue after a weeklong standoff that started when censors replaced a New Year's editorial. Now the week's events are being parsed for signals about the direction of China's new Communist leadership.
The demands for free speech have spilled onto China's streets — something that has rarely happened since the Tiananmen protests of 1989. As Southern Weekly journalists in Guangzhou engaged in silent battle with officials inside their building, their advocates outside were louder.
This shows the popular demand for civil rights, says Zhang Hong, deputy editor of the Economic Observer in Beijing; he believes the dangers of silence now outweigh the risks of speaking out.
"If I am going to live in this country for the coming years, I have my daughter who will live here for coming decades — if we don't speak out, I cannot imagine what kind of a world it will be," Zhang says. "So it's risky, yes or no?"
Protests And Detentions
For days, messages supporting the journalists seemed everywhere: celebrities voicing their solidarity on China's version of Twitter; hidden acrostics on major websites; another paper printing a paean to porridge, a word that in Chinese sounds the same as Southern Weekly. It seemed to be a window of opportunity; then, it closed.
Outside Southern Weekly's headquarters in Guangzhou, a protester shouts that he's being kidnapped as he's bundled into a van by plainclothes police. Inside the building, journalists have struck an uneasy truce with censors. Details of the truce aren't known, but the paper is back on newsstands — without its political section.
The message of the handling of this week's events, Zhang says, is clear.
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