Thursday, October 24, 2013

China Submits Human Rights Report to UN, Baidu Bans Forums on "Human Rights," "Freedom," and "Speech"

On October 24, 2013, the state sponsored China Central Television published an article on its web site entitled "China Undergoes Second UN Human Rights Review." Some excerpts:
"Our whole country is now trying to realize the Chinese Dream. It is a dream in which the Chinese people pursue and enjoy a happy life. It is also a dream of human rights. With the realization of the Chinese dream, the human rights cause in China will witness even greater achievements." Wu Hailong, special envoy of Chinese Foreign Ministry, said. 
Meanwhile, some western countries have accused China of what they called mass detentions, curbing Internet freedom and suppressing ethnic minorities. 
In response, China said it was willing to work with other countries on human rights but firmly opposed those kinds of biased and malicious criticisms.
These screenshots were taken on October 23, and show that Baidu had banned users from setting up forums on its PostBar (贴吧 Tieba) to discuss human rights (人权), rights defense (维权), freedom (自由), speech (言论), and religion (宗教). Users searching for forums on these topics are told "Apologies, in accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, this Bar cannot be opened at this time" (抱歉,根据相关法律法规和政策,本吧暂不开放。).




These screenshots were taken on October 24, and show that a search on Baidu for "Chinese Dream" (中国梦) returns a search results set off by special graphics, and users have been allowed to set up a "China Dream" PostBar.

Translation: Sun Daluo's Court Judgment for Sharing Books and Articles

The PRC government sentenced Sun Zhiming (孙志明, who wrote under the alias Sun Daluo (孙大骆)) to one year imprisonment for the crime of "di...