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Massive PRC media blackout against an " unknown, unpopular " small guy !

GoFlyKiteNow

Alfrescian
Loyal
China clamps down on dissidents, media ahead of Nobel prize ceremony
AFP, Dec 10, 2010, 10.46am

BEIJING: China clamped down on dissidents, the Internet and the media on Friday as the Nobel committee readied to honor peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, with activists missing and strong security at his wife's flat.

A ceremony in Liu's honour is due to take place later Friday in Oslo, but neither Liu, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence, his wife — under house arrest — nor other members of his family will be able to collect his award.

China has reacted with fury to the prize and has blocked scores of activists, lawyers and scholars from leaving the country, in an apparent bid to stop them from going to the ceremony in the Norwegian capital.

On Friday, many dissidents in China were either unaccounted for or under strict surveillance, with many unable to communicate to the outside world as their Internet access was cut off and phone use limited, rights groups said.

Security was strong in front of the Beijing apartment complex where Liu's wife Liu Xia lives, with marked and unmarked police cars lining the road. Several officers stood guard, asking reporters for their names.

Liu Xia has been essentially confined to the flat since the prize was announced in October. She was initially able to communicate sporadically via Twitter but has not been heard from directly in weeks.

Some activists based in Beijing have been forced to leave the capital in anticipation of the ceremony, while others have decided to travel to avoid any hassle.

Li Fangping, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer who had been under constant surveillance in the capital in recent weeks, told AFP he left Tuesday for the southeastern province of Fujian.

"Police took me to the airport," he said, adding he had been told not to leave China and not to say anything related to Liu and the prize. He said he planned to return home on Sunday.

Teng Biao, another rights lawyer and professor, was seized by police after teaching a class and taken to a county outside Beijing, where he will be held until Sunday, activist group Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.

The whereabouts of other dissidents were unknown. CHRD said Zhang Zuhua, a co-author along with Liu of Charter 08, a petition calling for political reform in China, had been abducted Thursday by police from the street near his home.

AFP attempts to reach Zhang by telephone were unsuccessful, as the phone appeared to have been turned off.

Censors have also apparently begun blocking reports on foreign television networks about Liu, who was jailed in December 2009 for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring Charter 08.

CNN, BBC and French-language satellite channel TV5 were intermittently blacked out on Friday, as they were when Liu was named the peace prize winner two months ago.

Access to the websites of CNN, BBC and Norwegian public broadcaster NRK was interrupted on the mainland on Thursday.

"CNN.com is completely blocked ... Every time our reports are broadcast about the Nobel Prize winner, the television screens black out," CNN Beijing bureau chief Jaime FlorCruz said in comments posted on the network's website.

The Nobel committee's website was also blocked.

China has a huge online censorship system that aggressively blocks sites or snuffs out Internet content and commentary on topics considered sensitive, such as Beijing's human rights record and criticisms of the government.

In a statement, the BBC lamented the fact that many web users in China could not access its sites.

"We can confirm that all BBC sites, not just news, are blocked to users in China. We are not alone. It is the same for many other sites belonging to international news organisations," it said.

"We are disappointed that our audiences in China are denied access to our impartial and editorially independent journalism."
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RIP: GEORGE ORWELL 1984
 
Z

Zombie

Guest
China: Cut you off from things they do not want you to see and hear.

USA: Flooding you with the only things they want you to see and hear.

:biggrin:
 
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