Baidu Censors Results for Xu Zhiyong's Closing Statement to the Court

During his trial on January 22, 2014, Xu Zhiyong attempted to read a statement to the court entitled “For Freedom, Justice and Love — My Closing Statement to the Court.”(许志永法庭陈词：最后为了自由·公义·爱).

On January 26, the First Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing announced that it had found Xu guilty of gathering groups to cause disorder in public venues, and had sentenced him to four years imprisonment.

These screenshots show that Baidu began censoring searches for “Xu Zhiyong Final Statement” (许志永 最后陈述) at about the time the court announced its verdict.

These screenshots were taken on January 26, and show that searches on Baidu for “'Xu Zhiyong  Court Closing Statement'” ("许志永法庭陈词") and “Xu Zhiyong ‘For Freedom, Justice, and Love’” (许志永 "为了自由公义爱") returned no results, just a censorship notice.

Additional coverage of Xu Zhiyong's case:

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