Rebecca MacKinnon · August, 2005

Latest posts by Rebecca MacKinnon from August, 2005

China: Homeland Security officer trial

  28 August 2005

The ongoing trial of a U.S. Homeland Security officer charged with the beating of a Chinese tourist at Niagra Falls last year is not well-known to Americans, but it definitely is to people in China. ESWN is following developments on this page. Zhao Yan, the Chinese tourist, will testify tomorrow...

China: Furong Jiejie's false claim of Censorship?

  28 August 2005

At my personal blog RConversation.com, I link to a Red Herring article in which journalist Kaiser Kuo concludes that claims of censorship by Chinese blogger “Sister Hibiscus” are actually false. I would love to know what Chinese bloggers think about this whole issue, and whether anybody has any concrete evidence...

China: “Super Girls” and SMS democracy

  28 August 2005

ESWN has a long, reflective post about Hunan TV's “Super Girls” show, in which viewers voted via SMS for their favorite girl singers. He translates the Chinese-language posts by some bloggers who believe the “Super Girls” phenom could mark the beginning of a more democratic culture in China. But ESWN...

Freedom of Speech News

  26 August 2005

According to Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), and Human Rights Watch, here are the latest developments on threats to Freedom of Speech over the past week: Tunisia: Government bans new journalists’ union from holding founding congress. RSF reports that the Tunisian government has decided to ban the Union of Tunisian Journalists...

The World Reacts to Robertson

  25 August 2005

In the global chatter about U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson‘s remarks calling for the assasination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (for which he later apologized), there is much reflection on religious extremism – and the extent to which it is tolerated in various countries. Calvin Ng, a Malaysian Christian, condemns “Mad...

China: “Purifying” the Chinese Internet

  22 August 2005

The Chinese newspaper Southern Weekend has a detailed article explaining how the Chinese government goes about censoring and controlling internet speech. EastSouthWestNorth has a full translation. (More background at Chinadigitaltimes.)