China Blocking Technorati.com
Technorati.com, a service that provides search and indexing of weblogs, has been blocked by the Chinese government:
From “Mad About Shanghai” blog:
“It looks to me like Technorati has been blocked by the Great Firewall of China.
Since yesterday I have been (unsuccessfully) trying to access Technorati, but each time I have tried, the connection is refused.
<snip>
Yet another annoying little thing that simply frustrates people in their daily life. Seriously, why bother when I can access it anyway like I can through the proxy – all it does cause resentment against the people controlling the flow of information.”
Google & China – Still a problem
The New York Times Magazine has a large article covering China’s internet, Google’s relationship with China, and the odd ways in which censorship has evolved behind the Great Firewall of China. The article starts with a critical look at Google’s January 2006 launch of the self-censoring version of its search engine on google.cn.
Yet Google’s conduct in China has in recent months seemed considerably less than idealistic. In January, a few months after Lee opened the Beijing office, the company announced it would be introducing a new version of its search engine for the Chinese market. To obey China’s censorship laws, Google’s representatives explained, the company had agreed to purge its search results of any Web sites disapproved of by the Chinese government, including Web sites promoting Falun Gong, a government-banned spiritual movement; sites promoting free speech in China; or any mention of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. If you search for “Tibet” or “Falun Gong” most anywhere in the world on google.com, you’ll find thousands of blog entries, news items and chat rooms on Chinese repression. Do the same search inside China on google.cn, and most, if not all, of these links will be gone. Google will have erased them completely. (more…)
Reporter Ejected from Hu’s Yale Talk
A CNN reporter was thrown out of a private reception in Yale President Richard Levin’s office after he shouted a question about whether Hu had seen more than 1,000 protesters gathered on the city green.
Yale spokeswoman Helene Kalsky said the reporter was thrown out because, “We invited you to cover an event, not to hold a press conference.”
She said the event was only meant to be a photo opportunity and ceremony.
That’s some great freedom and democracy you’re representing there Yale University. A real model of education and enlightenment for repressive regimes like China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia to aspire towards. I’m sure Yale alumnae, donors, and students are proud that their esteemed university is protecting Chairman Hu from criticism.
Getting in Hu’s Face
I’m on the bus back from New Haven, we’ve just pulled out of a rest area where we had a sinfully pleasant McDonald’s and Budweiser pit stop. Around one hundred Tibetans joined a thousand plus Falun Gong practitioners. Most of the Falun Gong are Chinese immigrants, though I met practitioners who flew to the US from Australia and Germany to protest Hu’s visit. Additionally there were about a thousand paid Chinese greeters grouped around the Yale campus. 
Hu was giving an invitation-only talk at Yale, with almost no students in attendance. While there wasn’t the same Secret Service presence as in DC yesterday, the New Haven PD was out in full force, mostly glad clad with riot helmets and gas masks. One cop was even riding a Clydesdale, which is one hell of a big horse next to regular mounted police horses. I must say while over-deployed and over-armored, the NHPD was extremely polite throughout the day, even during some of the more trying moments.
Though I wasn’t able to get Hu yesterday at the Wardman Marriot Hotel in DC, we had high hopes for making our presence at Yale today. He made it into his talk via the one route we didn’t have fully covered with demonstrators. We were better prepared for his exit. My coworker Han Shan and myself were able to unfurl a banner that read “China Out of Tibet� in front of his motorcade as he was leaving. Though we were both pushed and shoved by NHPD officers trying to get us off the road and onto the curb, we were able to stay visible throughout the procession of Cadillac limousines containing Hu and his delegation. As I said before, NHPD was really polite and didn’t show the same vicious determination we’ve seen other police departments display in similar situations, hence our success at keeping our banner at the front of a large crowd of greeters. It would have been great to do something even more visible (we were at street level) and with a larger banner (ours was about six feet long by two feet high), it was fulfilling to do a direct action that humiliated Chairman Hu. Not getting arrested was also a plus.
Hu’s visit to the US has undoubtedly been marred by public shamings and embarrassment. He was protested by loud and visible groups of Tibetans, Taiwanese, Uighurs, and Falon Gong practitioners in every US city he visited – Seattle, DC, and New Haven. The Bush administration refused to grant him an official state visit, despite months of petitioning by the PRC government. His Rose Garden press conference was distrupted by a Falun Gong practitioner who was able to speak for almost a minute before being dragged away by the Secret Service. Hu was introduced as the President of the Republic of China [read: Taiwan] instead of the People’s Republic of China [edit: I’d also heard that it was the anthem that was introduced as belonging to the Republic of Taiwan, not Hu himself].
This is a truly embarrassing string of slights and shamings for Hu to endure in his travels abroad. Of course, this is what happens when you run one of the world’s most repressive regimes and regularly deny your citizens (and your subjugated peoples) democratic rights, religious rights, and the rights of free speech, assembly, press, and petition.
To paraphrase “The Angry Monk�, my friend Kusho Sonam Wangdu, Chinese leaders will have no peace until Tibet has freedom.
Cross posted at Tibet Will Be Free.
Protest & The First Amendment
As I write this I’m on a bus that is entering Washington DC, where I and Tibetans and supporters (primarily the Tibetan Youth Congress and Students for a Free Tibet) with me on the bus are about to exercise all five rights accorded by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
We are assembling freely outside the White House to protest China’s continued occupation of Tibet, repression of Falun Gong practitioners, and ongoing hostility towards Taiwanese independence. We are petitioning President Bush to address the plight of the Tibetan people in his talks with Chairman Hu Jintao. We are publishing our opinions on web sites and weblogs without fear of censorship, as well as taking part in interviews with journalists who will likewise have no fears of censorship. We are safe in the knowledge that the words we use are protected and none of us will be put in jail for our political beliefs. Those among us who are Buddhist or Falun Gong practitioners harbor no concerns that their prayers will make them the targets of oppression.
None of these freedoms can be found for Tibetans inside of Tibet today. We utilize our protected rights of free speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition because we have them and Tibetans inside of Tibet do not. I haven’t felt the profound privilege of being an American much more intensely than I do today.
I’m on the bus coming back to New York City now. It’s after 10pm and it’s been an incredibly long, successful day. About 200+ Tibetans joined hundreds of Taiwanese, a few dozen Uighurs, and probably a few thousand Falun Gong practitioners to protest Hu outside the White House and in locations around DC. Often standing across from us, separated by barriers and mounted police, were groups of paid Chinese greeters. The Han Chinese could has large flags, uniformed hats and outfits, and a lot of canned recordings of CCP marching bands. They weren’t much into chanting or slogans, just picking the occasional fight with resolutely peaceful, yet persistent, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners.
It’s interesting to watch a government that is so sensitive about being adored that they’d hire and bus in expats to great their dignitaries. There’s something truly sad about the sort of people who would be edified by paid greeters. Aren’t you getting enough adoration at home Hu? Probably not, if 87,000 instances of mass protest in the last year in China is a fair indicator.
A Falun Gong women who is a reporter for The Epoch Times was able to ask a prolonged question of Bush and Hu during their joint presser in the Rose Garden. As noted earlier, she asked Bush what he would do to stop China’s repression, torture, and execution of Falun Gong and its practitioners. She also told Hu, in Chinese, that his and his communist party cohorts days were numbered. Again, China’s phobia of negative press blazed through as China TV immediately cut its feed when the woman’s question turned negative – only to reconnect a few seconds later (perhaps thinking the coast would surely be clear) to find her still talking and they had to cut the feed again. What an embarrassment for the state of freedom of information inside China – they can’t even show their people what’s going on inside a free society.
My day ended in a slightly disappointing fashion. SFT had information about Hu’s speaking engagement at the US-China Business Council. I and at first one, then two more, coworkers were able to make it inside the lobby of the event, yet could not gain access to the actual reception. We were prepared to give Hu a real “greeting� in person had he been brave enough to walk through the front door – you know, show him what free speech looks like in an open society. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for him, he took the coward’s way in and entered the event through a service entrance.
The battery on my laptop is almost dead and I’m stone cold exhausted, having gotten up at 4am today. Tomorrow will be another early day, as we’ll be headed to protest Hu’s talk at Yale University in Connecticut. More updates will follow Friday evening at the earliest, but check out Tibet Will Be Free for press coverage and pictures.
Pictures above taken on my cell phone. Cross posted at Tibet Will Be Free.
- Freddie Matthews
on Heavenly Tibet? or Hell on Earth? - Peter S.Mulshine
on Heavenly Tibet? or Hell on Earth? - Lora McCoy
on SFT Canada’s Tsering Confronts HDI/Continental Minerals’ Executives
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