China shuts down liberal website
2013-01-04 14:01
Beijing - A liberal Chinese journal had its website shut
down on Friday, it said, after it urged the country's Communist leaders - who
regularly promise reform - to follow the constitution.
The website of Annals of the Yellow Emperor, a prominent
Beijing-based publication, was closed days after it published an article
arguing that China's constitution lays out a roadmap for political change.
Attempts to access the website on Friday led to a page
with a cartoon policeman holding up a badge and the message: "The website
you are visiting has been closed because it has not been filed on record."
The move follows a similar call in a key liberal
newspaper being censored by the authorities.
Chinese liberals argue that rights enshrined in the
constitution, including freedom of speech, press and assembly, are not
respected by the ruling Communist party.
"At around 09:00 today [Friday], the website was
closed," said a post on the Annals of the Yellow Emperor's official web
page on Sina Weibo, a website similar to Twitter.
The journal's editors received a message from Internet
regulator the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last month
stating that the website had been "cancelled", the post said.
The ministry did not immediately respond to faxed
questions sent by AFP on Friday.
The website closure came a day after censors blocked an
article from popular liberal newspaper Southern Weekly which called for the
realisation of a "dream of constitutionalism in China" so that
citizens' rights could be protected.
A propaganda official in Guangdong province, where the
newspaper is based, removed the article and replaced it with a weaker message,
said several current and former journalists at the newspaper.
The official, Tuo Zhen, "directed that many
alterations and replacements be made to the New Year's special edition. This
resulted in numerous errors and accidents", former Southern Weekly
journalists said in an open letter posted online.
All Chinese media organisations are subject to orders
from government propaganda departments, which often suppress news seen as
"negative" by the Communist party, although some publications take a
more critical stance.
China was the 174 lowest of 179 countries ranked for
press freedom in 2011-12 by the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders,
falling three places compared to the previous year.
- SAPA
