Further Censorship in China

The Chinese government seems to be pursuing heightened degrees of media censorship in attempts to mitigate the spread of the democratic revolutions to Chinese provinces. China has recently allocated $95 billion for "public security", part of which will pay for "internal threats"-- essentially preventing public dissent of the government. According to a recent article in the Washington post, Chinese officials have been particularly keen on monitoring the activity of foreign journalists, stating that these journalists must obey Chinese laws. The government denies claims of the police attacking journalists last week (despite the eyewitness accounts and even video evidence).

These heighted controls are reversing the free-press laws that were established prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympics as an attempt to show China as modernizing and free nation. The 2008 regulations allowed for foreign journalists to interview any citizen who agreed to be interviewew; foreign journalists now must first receive permission from the government before they can interview any citizen in a public arena. There have been mutliple accounts of foreign journalists being "reminded" of Chinese reporting policies, and also accounts of journalists being tracked, detained, and harrassed.

by brianna howell