Saturday, August 17, 2013

China's Weibos, News Sites, and Search Engines Censor Story About Shanghai Judge's Alleged Corruption

Excerpt from complaint
from 70 of Cui Yadong's
former subordinates.
On August 9, 2013, the state-sponsored China Daily published an article entitled "Shanghai Judges Sacked Over Prostitution Scandal." Some excerpts:
The municipal legislature of Shanghai decided on Thursday to sack four senior judges from the city's higher court over their alleged hiring of prostitutes at a nightclub. 
Chen Xueming, was sacked by the Standing Committee of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, from his posts as a member of the Shanghai Municipal Higher People's Court's judicial committee, chief of No 1 civil court and judge. 
Zhao Minghua was dismissed from his posts as deputy chief of the No 1 civil court and judge. Ni Zhengwen was fired from his post as judge of the higher court. 
The legislative session also approved the removal of Wang Guojun from his posts as deputy chief of the higher court's No 5 civil court and judge. 
The four had all served the city's higher court. They were placed under official scrutiny after a netizen released video footage that appears to show them soliciting prostitutes at the Hengshan Resort in Shanghai on the night of June 9. 
Investigators found the four, along with a manager at a state-owned company in Shanghai, spent a night in the resort's nightclub where they allegedly hired prostitutes.
. . . .
Cui Yadong, acting president of the municipal higher court, urged that lessons be learned from the scandal and called for "zero tolerance" toward any undiscipline or law violations.
That same day the state-sponsored Guangming Daily quoted Cui as saying:
Right now the Chinese Communist Party is launching an extensive mass line educational campaign to concentrate on and address the "four winds" issue, and for this incident to come out at this time is having a severely negative impact on the what the Party and the government is trying to accomplish. It has also provided an opportunity for foreign enemy forces to attack the Party, the government, the socialist system of justice, and Shanghai's Party cadres.
当前,中国共产党正在深入开展党的群众路线教育实践活动,集中整治“四风”问题,这一事件发生在此期间,对党的事业和国家法治建设造成了巨大影响和损害,也给境内外敌对势力借机攻击党和政府、攻击社会主义司法制度、攻击上海党政干部队伍提供了可乘之机。
On August 16, 2013, China's largest state-sponsored media outlets, including Xinhua, the China Daily, and the People's Daily, published reports with titles such as "Shanghai High Court Judge Reported for Corruption, Stole Six Tons of Mautai a Year" (上海高院代院长被举报贪腐 每年偷拿6吨茅台) and "70 Step Forward to Report Cui Yadong Shows Difficulties in Calming Public Wrath" (崔亚东遭“70名下属实名举报”是众怒难平). Here's an excerpt from one of the reports:
Cui Yadong, the Shanghai Higher Court's acting President and Party Secretary who caused an uproar with his talk of "hostile forces" during Shanghai's "Judges Group Whoring," is now the subject of accusations of corruption by 70 subordinates from his time in Guizhou's Public Security Office. The 16 accusations include claims catering to the interests of property developers, building a 1,442 ping villa in the sky, and every year appropriating six tons of Maotai, truly shocking.
上海“法官集体嫖娼”中,因“敌对势力”言论引起哗然的上海高院党组书记、代院长崔亚东“后院”起火——他在贵州省公安厅任职时的70名下属,实名举报其贪腐。所列16项内容,包括对开发商重大利益输送、建成面积达1442平方米空中别墅、每年偷拿6吨茅台酒等,触目惊心。
These screenshots show that the article had been deleted by the following morning.

Original URLs:
These screenshots were taken on August 17, and show that both Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo were censoring searches for "Cui Yadong."

Sina Weibo was also censoring searches for "Shanghai High Court." (上海高院)

These screenshots show that China's major search engines were censoring searches for "Cui Yadong Reported."
Baidu censors "Cui Yadong Report," but not
"Cui Yadong" or "Report." 

These screenshots show that on August 17 Baidu shut down its Cui Yadong PostBar (Tieba 贴吧) forum and deleted posts associated with the corruption allegations.


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