China Labour Bulletin applauds the action taken by a group of former Communist Party officials earlier this week, who in an open letter criticised the central government's strict news censorship and attempts to keep the public locked in ignorance.
We also call on the government to stop its censorship of the Internet and blocking of websites, including the China Labour Bulletin site and many others which have no subversive content or intention.
The signatories of the open letter included Li Rui, a onetime aide to former leader Mao Zedong, Hu Jiwei, former editor-in-chief of People's Daily, Zhu Houze, former chief of the Chinese Communist Party's Propaganda Department and Li Pu,former deputy head of Xinhua News Agency. They said in the letter that strict censorship may "sow the seeds of disaster" for China's political transition.
The timing release of the party elders' rare and surprising letter, dated 2 February and released on 14 February, appears to have been sparked by the closure of Freezing Point, a popular weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily, published in Beijing and well known and respected for its investigative journalism.
The weekly supplement has been allowed to re-open on 1 March after it was shut down in January. However, the paper's two editors, responsible for the supplement, have been fired. The closure of the supplement was related to an article written by Yuan Weishi, a professor of Zhongshan University (also known as Sun Yat-sen University) in Guangzhou, criticizing that the fact that Chinese history textbooks never acknowledged the culpability of the government, but blamed others instead.
China Labour Bulletin appreciates the action taken by those former party leaders and their protest against the current government's crackdown on the media. Like many other websites promoting civil society in China, both China-based and overseas-based, the English-language website and Chinese-language websites of China Labour Bulletin are blocked in China. China Labour Bulletin calls on the Chinese government to stop blocking all these websites, many of which are informative on Chinese people's lives and carry no content which could be viewed as subversive to the Chinese Communist regime.
The Chinese government has advocated the establishment of a modern, civil society in China, one that tackles its problems with knowledge and expertise seeking always to maintain social harmony. We believe with those party elders that freedom of expression is fundamental to this pursuit.
17 February 2006