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Category: Democracy

March 23, 2006

Journalistic Integrity Thwarts the Thought Police

The Korean press earns heartfelt praise this week for showing courage in its convictions, and refusing to let itself be censored by the North Korean thought police. If only their government possessed the same clarity. It all began with one of those tortuous, strictly monitored “reunions” the North permits between divided families — this one at Mt. Kumgang. A number of those present on the North Korean side were in fact abducted South Korean citizens, perhaps hoping for a last...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Censorship/Human Rights/Media Criticism
February 19, 2006

When Power Comes from the Wire of a Modem

The Washington Post has a fascinating look at how the Internet forced the Chinese government to retreat – partially – in its censorship of the journal “Freezing Point” (previous posts here). Why didn’t Beijing simply follow Mao’s old “barrel of a gun” formula this time? Because the Chinese economy must sustain sufficiently high growth to absorb a flood of excess laborers from rural areas to preserve social stability, which places China between the Scylla of rising dissent and the Charibdis...

Categories Censorship/China/Geopolitics/Human Rights/NK Economics/WTF?
February 18, 2006

A ‘Freezing Point’ Thaw?

The backlash against Beijing’s closure of the journal “Freezing Point” is growing in both the number and the bravery of those supporting that backlash. The reaction – in no small part due to the focused attention of the New York Times – initially forced Beijing to allow the paper to reopen, but without its two fired editors. Now, those editors have published a scathing and fearless response to the censors in the Forbidden City:

Categories Censorship/China
February 17, 2006

Cartoon Idiocy, Part II

After learning that South Korea was in danger of losing the title for “Hub of Petty Despotism,” President Roh Moo Hyun launched his own cartoon war of sorts this week. No embassies were harmed in this production; the only violence was that done to freedom of the press: President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday filed a second libel suit against the mainstream Chosun Ilbo newspaper, saying a cartoon defamed him by circulating false facts. The cartoon, titled “The lie is detected fast,”...

Categories Censorship/Humor/Satire/Korean Law/Korean Politics/U.S. Law/WTF?
February 15, 2006

Members of China’s Elite Denounce Censorship

[Updated 2/16; scroll down]   This looks like very good news for China: A dozen former Communist Party officials and senior scholars, including a onetime secretary to Mao, a party propaganda chief and the retired bosses of some of the country’s most powerful newspapers, have denounced the recent closing of a prominent news journal, helping to fuel a growing backlash against censorship. The trigger for the protest letter, which was leaked to journalists, was the closing of a Chinese newspaper...

Categories Censorship/China
February 14, 2006

For Now, An Uncensored Portal for China

If you’ve been bummed about both Yahoo and Google helping China censor their Chinese-language internet portals, there’s good news (via Rebecca MacKinnon):  AOL has launched its own Chinese-language portal. Rebecca reports: I can confirm: the search engine on this portal is uncensored. Searches for “Falun Gong” and “Tiananmen Square Massacre” turn up the full range of results from dissident and human rights websites. I can also report that according to my friends in China, so far the AOL Chinese portal...

Categories Asia/Censorship/China
February 5, 2006

Springtime in the Gulag: S. Korean Gov’t Says Play ‘Dwells Too Heavily on Negative Aspects’ of Concentration Camp Life

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! So it has come to this: it is no longer legal to criticize the human rights record of North Korea in Seoul, South Korea. For those who would defy the rising vicarious control of North Korea’s Ministry of Public Security on the streets of Seoul, here is what happens next: A planned musical about human rights abuses in North Korea’s Yoduk concentration camp has run into massive obstacles, not least from officials fearful of upsetting the...

Categories Appeasement/Censorship
January 27, 2006

If You Know What’s Good for You . . .

In one of the most disturbing stories of the year, we see the reprehensible authoritarian depths to which the South Korean government will stoop to protect its political power and money-making ventures from the truth that must be kept inside the North Korean defectors who know it. . . . 南北 비판한 탈북자 19% “말조심 협박 받아” Nineteen Percent of North Korean Escapees Who Criticize Governments of South or North Korea Report Being Censored with Threats [The article uses the...

Categories Censorship/Defectors/Democracy/Refugees
August 18, 2005

Is South Korea Still Free?

I knew that the South Korean government took some extraordinary measures to shield its visiting Northern bretheren from pesky free speech, but things have apparently gone further downhill than I had realized. Listen to what the new dissidents are reporting: Doh Hee-yun, the head of the Citizens’ Coalition for Human Rights for Abductees and North Korean Refugees, said Thursday two inspectors from Mapo Police Station followed him from morning to night during the celebrations. He said the inspectors tailed him...

Categories Censorship
January 31, 2005

South Korea’s Ruling Party Launches Campaign Against Independent Media

Supporters of South Korea’s leftist President Roh-Moo Hyun have announced a fresh campaign to persuade citizens to cancel their subscriptions to the often-critical Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo, and to subscribe instead to the pro-government Kyunghang Sinmun and Hankyoreh Sinmun. The latter newspapers both strongly support the Roh administration’s policy of appeasing North Korea and assuming a more neutral role toward the United States, which maintains 34,000 troops in Korea for that nation’s defense. The group, known as Nosamo, or...

Categories Censorship