Citizen Power for China strongly supports the recent strike by the journalists at Southern Weekly and the widespread protest by ordinary Chinese citizens and intellectuals against the Nazi-style censorship by the Guangdong provincial propaganda chief. The incident which sparked the strike was created by Guangdong’s propaganda department led by chief censor, Tuo Zhen, that unilaterally changed the newspaper’s New Year’s editorial calling for constitutional reform into a tribute to the Chinese Communist Party.
We express our great admiration for the courage and solidarity displayed by the journalists at Southern Weekly and the Chinese citizens, particularly those public intellectuals, microbloggers and other netizens for their landmark fight for freedom of the press by issuing open letters and holding rallies outside of the office of Southern Weekly in Guangzhou on January 7th. We believe their struggle signals that what could be a new era for a free press in China based on the advocacy and sustained effort of these brave journalists that have inspired countless Chinese people to take civic actions to defend their own basic political and civil rights and demand for free speech and free press. The journalist’s actions have received wave after wave of support from every corner of China.
We hail Southern Weekly as a harbinger of China’s new free press. Despite the fact that it is part of the Guangdong provincial-level state-owned media enterprise, over the past 30 years the newspaper has been a voice of truth, openness, honesty, justice and morality in the midst of a corrupt Chinese society. Because it pushes the boundaries of political acceptability it has also paid a heavy price: in 2012 alone, 1,034 of their stories were censored in some way, and quite a few senior editors have lost their jobs for refusing to cooperate with government censors.
We firmly hold that the Guangdong CPC Propaganda Department and its director should be held accountable their gross violation of China’s constitutionally protected right to a free press.
The incident has once again exposed the evil and ugly side of the Chinese regime’s media censorship system. In practice, this system is no different than that of Goebbels’ Nazi propaganda machine. Such a system also runs contrary to the reform spirit of the 18th Party Congress, and particularly inconsistent with Mr. Xi Jinping’s call for the CPC to respect the law and to conduct its activities within the framework of the Constitution. The Party has no right to abrogate the Constitution or the law. We urge Mr. Xi and the CPC to take this opportunity to abolish the censorship system, lift all press restrictions, and fire Tuo Zhen.
Contact:
Jianli Yang
857-472-9039
yangjianli001@gmail.com
Lianchao Han
703-851-8334
lianchao@gmail.com
Jianying Wang
202-677-0209
josephdcwang@gmail.com
