Both documents express a need for an open media and development in the circulation of information. Both embrace the utilization of new media technologies and encourage interaction and cooperation among journalists and audiences. Yet their implications are more dissimilar than alike, and one of the declarations has altogether disappeared from online viewing.

On October 8 an “Internet Human Rights Declaration” was posted online by a group of 15 intellectuals from mainland China. The declaration calls for online freedom of speech, freedom of expression, editorial and commentary rights, among the list of ten stipulations directed at the increasingly harsh administration of online censorship by the People’s Republic of China.

The declaration also calls for the establishment of a “Chinese Internet Human Rights Day” on Oct. 10, a date closely related to the Xinhai Revolution and the establishment of the first republican government in China in the early 20th century.

The group of well-known journalists, lawyers, authors, and scholars includes Ling Cangzhou, an author, scholar, and Beijing-based journalist; Zhao Guojun, a Beijing-based legal expert; Ran Yunfei, an author, scholar and editor from Chengdu, Sichuan; and the Canton-based journalist Bei Feng.

Ling, drafter and co-signer of the document, in an interview with the BBC, said that the purpose of the declaration was to bring the Chinese people’s attention to the current state of the internet and to stimulate thought on free speech and free media. The declaration is mild, logical, and constructive, and issued within the scope of Chinese law and constitution, Ling said.

Bei Feng, in a telephone interview, said that the drafting of the declaration was prompted by the increasing severity of internet censorship administered by the Chinese Government.

The two-day World Media Summit, beginning Oct. 9 and hosted by the Chinese Government at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square, issued a declaration of its own Oct. 10. Along with an acknowledgement of the effects of the global financial crisis on global media, the declaration advocates “progressive adaptation to the developmental current of the times.”

The document states “We hope that all media organizations circulate factual, objective, just, and fair information throughout the world, expediting the transparency and public credibility of government and public institutions.”

The opening ceremony of the summit heard an address by China’s President Hu Jintao, echoing many of the tenets expressed in the official declaration released a day later by the Xinhua News Agency. Both Hu’s address and the official declaration listed the main themes of the summit as “cooperation, action, win-win, and development.”

“…monitoring by the public and the safeguarding of the rights to be informed, to participation, to expression, to monitor, and so on, can be organized and their important functions put into play,” Hu stated, while addressing the likes of News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdock, Associated Press President and CEO Thomas Curley, and Google Vice-President John Liu, all of whom also made statements at the opening ceremony.

The Internet Human Rights Declaration, issued just one day before Hu’s speech, was very much focused on the same ideals, the protection of the rights to be informed, to expression, and to monitor mentioned in both documents. At first glance, one might think the two parties were cooperating with each other and that the issuances of the two documents were coordinated. After all, no statement in the former contradicts or runs askew with those in the latter; they read only to complement one another.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. A day before the World Media Summit document hit the net, the Internet Human Rights Declaration had already been thoroughly blocked from further viewing, subsequent searches for the document eliciting a search failure screen from China’s biggest search engine Baidu.com. By Oct 10 mention of the declaration could still be found on some Chinese weblogs, but not without substantial digging.

Wen Yunchao, a co-signer of the declaration who goes by the pen name Bei Feng, commented on the document via telephone from Canton.

The conception of a declaration seeking the protection of internet human rights began in 2007 on the traditional Chinese festival of Qingming, or Tomb Sweeping Day, Wen said. It was during that festival, which usually lands in mid-spring according to the Chinese lunar calendar, that Wen began corresponding with Ling Cangzhou and other co-signers on the need for protection of internet human rights, he said.

Wen, 38 and a native of Canton, said certain internet phenomena surrounding the preparation, hosting and closing of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, prompted the drafting of the declaration.

“There was a period before and during the Olympics when internet regulation seemed loose. Certain websites had become viewable in China. But other forms of regulation had become stricter. During the Olympics it became more difficult to post anything controversial online,” he said.

Wen said with the closing of the Beijing Olympics, unblocked websites were blocked once again and general regulation of the internet in China became “extremely severe,” with censorship exceeding that of pre-Olympic levels. When asked what defining factor prompted the group of 15 to draft the declaration, Wen simply replied “There was a need to do it. We need to get our rights back.”

The posting of the declaration initially received a strong reaction from fellow internet users in both mainland China and in Hong Kong, Wen said. It was the media attention received in Hong Kong that led to broadened awareness of the declaration, he said, expressing gratitude to Hong Kong internet users. The document is still widely viewable in Hong Kong, the “One country, two systems” policy exempting the former British colony from harsh online regulation.

Despite passionate responses from fellow Chinese, the Internet Human Rights Declaration began to disappear from online viewing within a day of its posting.

“Of course it’s not possible to delete all the information,” Wen said. “You might find it if you try hard enough. Internet regulation is not a completely solid system.”

Despite the censoring of the declaration, Wen sounded optimistic about expected reactions from the government. He said as of yet the only government reaction was the censoring of the document and related information. Yet he expressed the sincere anticipation of a positive official response. It’s the hope of the 15 intellectuals that the government will eventually grant the rights requested in the Internet Human Rights Declaration, he said.

The declaration also suggests that Oct. 10 should be designated as “Chinese Internet Human Rights Day.” Although seldom observed in mainland China, Oct. 10 is the anniversary of the XinHai Revolution which broke out in the central city of Wuhan in 1911, leading to the fall of the Qing Dynasty and subsequent rise of a republican government. In Taiwan Oct. 10 is known as “Double Ten Day” and is celebrated as the official national day, an equivalent to the mainland’s celebration 10 days earlier.

“The establishment of a holiday on is not the most important thing. The broadening of awareness and the protection of these rights is most important,” Wen said, when asked to elaborate on the idea of an internet human rights day.

Wen couldn’t help but compare the developments of the two political bodies, Taiwan and China, over the past 60 years. To Wen Oct. 10 represents many of the freedoms appreciated by Taiwan at present. He called Taiwan a sample of what mainland China could have been.

Wen said that the group of 15 co-signers wanted no relation drawn between the issuing of the declaration and the 60th anniversary of China. When asked for his opinion of the national day celebration in Beijing on Oct 1, he said it was a large-scale military parade no different from those seen during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s. He called it a representation of the communist party’s “mechanical state of mind.”

“There was nothing in the ceremony representing 60 years of development…It was a performance and a performance can have any effect they want it to. China can do it. North Korea can do it,” he said.

Since Fanfou, the Chinese micro-blogging website, has been ordered to shut down earlier this year, many bloggers moved to Twitter to spread their ideas. Net activists believe that it is impossible to block Twitter as there are many third party applications that allow users to read and post information without accessing the site. However, beginning from early this week, many Chinese twitterers reported that popular third party applications such as twitpic, itweet, twitese, twittergadget have been blocked and they have to shift to other tools.

When you search #fuckgfw in twitter, you can see the most updated blocking reports. Below is a selection of reports from past few days:

On Monday, October 12 2009

(trans) jason5ng32: bit.ly and twitpic are GFWed.

(trans) saytesnake: j.mp is dead also

On Tuesday, Oct 13 2009

Hafidxu Can't open http://bit.ly from china! #FuckGFW

(trans) binky2008: twitese.appspot.com is GFWed.

(trans) guoxintao #fuckGFW This afternoon (Tuesday): dabr.co.uk and itweet are both GFWed. The Wall is getting higher and higher.

Today, Wednesday, Oct 14 2009

weelingsoh Can't access Twitter via Twitzap or TwitterGadget anymore. #fuckgfw is getting increasingly sophisticated by the day. NGHNGH !

(trans) bleutee RT @iGFW itweet、twitzap、tweetree、twitterfeed and many other Twitter third party applications are dead #GFW #FuckGFW

(trans) kavenyan: just found out that i can't use itweet.net and twitter gadget from Gmail anymore. GFW is roaring. #fuckgfw

(trans) amoiist: in Plurk, someone reported: “latest news, Taiwan micro-blogging service http://buboo.tw can no longer be visited in PRC!!!”. So Buboo is blocked? #fuckGFW

Apart from expressing their frustration on the GFW, twitterers also share their ideas to get around the Wall.

amoiist RT @williamlong: update twhirl: open accounts manager, select laconi.ca, enter: “your twitter account”@twitter-proxy.appospot.com, password is your twitter password. It's done. #fuckGFW

Chinese bloggers and net activists once believed that after the 60th anniversary of the PRC, the government will loosen its control over the Internet. Now the situation is getting less optimistic.

In the Internet, several major social media, such as fanfou (a Chinese website similar to twitter) and douban have been suspended. Major overseas websites, such as youtube and twitter have been blocked. The Golden Shield was equipped with Blue Dam or Blue Shield. Moreover, the government also tries to block the access to major circumvention tools such as TOR.

In term of law and regulation, most of the websites are now demanding real identity login and pressure were given to web managers to remove sensitive and critical comments within a few minutes.

Yesterday, on 8 of October, 15 Chinese intellectuals, including writers, scholars and lawyers, jointly issued the an online Internet Human Rights Declaration reinstating the citizen's rights to access and disseminate information.

C.A Yeung from Under the Jacaranda Tree has translated the declaration into English. Below is a list of principles put forward by the initiators to be endorsed by a wider public:

1. Freedom of speech on the Internet is a part of citizens’ rights to freedom of speech. It is the most basic human rights and the most fundamental value that should be pursued, treasured and protected.

2. Netizens who express their opinions on the Internet using words, sounds, pictures or videos, should be protected and encouraged, as long as such conduct is in accord with the constitution and local statutes.

3. The right to publish opinion is the most basic rights for netizens. This includes the right to publish through weblogs and podcasts, as well as online discussion forums. Netizens’ rights to publish should not be subjected to unlawful investigation and interference. They should be allowed freedom to hold and to express their views without feeling intimidated.

4. Netizens’ editorial rights should be respected. When they are exercising those rights, they should not be subjected to harassment by authorities who act outside of law.

5. It is the right of Netizens to conduct interviews and to report their findings. This right is protected as a part of their constitutional rights to freedom of speech. Netizens who excercise this right should endeavour to report the truth, and to avoid distortions, fabrications and malicious slander.

6. It is the right of netizens to make comments and to exchange opinion. This includes the right to ask questions, to monitor, to criticise and to boycott.

7. Netizens’ freedom of speech encompasses a right to express themselves anonymously. Anonymity enables some authors to express their opinions in ways that best suit their needs. This legal right should be respected as long as an anonymous author is expressing his views in accordance with legal and constitutional requirements.

8. The right to conduct information searches on the Internet is an integral part of netizens’ rights to express, to be informed and to monitor. It is our opinion that legal websites should not be filtered, and that netizens’ rights to conduct searches on public information for personal use should be respected and protected.

9. Online privacy should be respected and protected. Netizens’ real identities and personal information should not be disclosed unless the information is required for a transparent legal proceeding, or else if the disclosure is necessary under the rule of law.

10. The freedom of disseminating information should be respected and protected as long as it is conducted in line with legal and constitutional requirements. Website monitoring, filtering and blockades that go against the principle of freedom of speech should be condemned by public opinion. Netizens are entitled to seek freedom of expression and justice through judicial proceedings.

You may join the signature campaign by signing up here with information including name, city/county, occupation and email. Remember to read the full text in Chinese or in English.

Now that MSN and twitter are blocked, some see that it is a good opportunity for Tencent to launch its international version. However, in the Chinese twitter community, many are yelling out to their friends: be aware of QQ! or QQ can get you in jail!.

Be aware of QQ!

Digitalboy used QQ for organizing a netizen meeting at Chengdu, Sichuan early this month. The meeting was forced to cancel. He warned that:

从成都解散聚会来看，绝不用QQ聊天。

Adeyso joined the conversation and pointed out that Tencent has singed a cooperation agreement with the Chinese high court that its chatting record would be used as legal evidence.

Huyong had the opportunity to visit Tencent's Shenzhen office this week, he reported on twitter on Tencent manager's explanation of the privacy concern:

腾讯的经理说：政府部门现在大量使用腾讯的即时通信工具和QQ群，因为腾讯工具的安全好、保密性强。而国际上的那些聊天工具，不论是MSN还是雅虎，都会经过中央情报局过滤。与之相比，腾讯公司不会截获用户信息，除非政府要求。

If you are not afraid of being in jail…

Amoiist was once detained by the police for two week back in July, he warned his twitter friends. Continue to use QQ if you are not afraid of being held in prison.

警方当时不但通过QQ把我们几个一网打尽，而且警察曾经拿着厚厚的一叠我和游兄的聊天记录让我签字，我完全没有想到我和他说过如此多的话而且多数记录和本案没有直接关系，我拒绝签字，那位警察就说“你不签也没关系，我们有证据。

Another twitter (identity protected) also reported that he was arrested by local police for organizing a meeting with political nature, and during his detention he had signed up a pile of QQ chatting record in the police station.

secretaryzhang commented on Tencent's QQ icon:

腾讯QQ这款产品看起来是一只温顺的脑残企鹅，但它真身实际是一直机敏的党国猎鹰。

The Blue Dam software can be downloaded from here. The Blue Dam is developed by Shanghai Andatong Information Safety Technology Company and ccording to a report back in July 2009, the Blue Dam is 20 times more effective than the Green Dam as it is a combination of software and hardware.

The Blue Dam system is consisted of the following features: a graphic-filtering system, administrative-management system, internet-behavior manager, VPN client. The developer said that the business version of the Blue Dam can help company to stop their workers from visiting websites or hanging around in the Internet on non work related activities.

Back in June, the Beijing government required international PC makers to equip their PC shipped to China with a filter software called “Green Dam-Youth Escort” by July 1. The plan was finally dropped as the internet public opinion has strong reaction against the filter.

Now that the Blue Dam is installed at the ISP level without much open discussion. Netizens will be subject to censorship and online behavior control with little self-awareness.

But in early August, without notification of a change, news portals like Sina, Netease, Sohu and scores of other sites began asking unregistered users to sign in under their real names and identification numbers, said top editors at two of the major portals affected. A Sina staff member also confirmed the change.

The editors said the sites were putting into effect a confidential directive issued in late July by the State Council Information Office, one of the main government bodies responsible for supervising the Internet in China.

Below is a standard registration form screen captured from one of the news portals, Sohu.com (via GFW blog):

Although netizens can fool the system with fake IDs and names, the registration will likely have a chilling effect, as Rebecca MacKinnon pointed out:

Even without real-name registration it's not so hard for the police to track somebody down if they really want to - as long as that person isn't using an anonymity tool like Tor and being extremely careful about their general online security. With growing numbers of Internet users being detained and prosecuted on charges of “spreading rumors” lately, even though the real-name registration system is far from thorough or perfect, it's likely to have a chilling effect.

According to Xinhua report, Duan accused Guo Feng of corruption and selling drug and sex in a KTV. The People's Procuratorate at Cao County believed that Duan's article had generated “negative impact” and “endangered social order” and filed a prosecution against him on July 3.

Duan Lei's lawyer pointed out that among the six articles Duan posted online, three of them had 79 views and others did not have view record, the accusation of “negative impact” and “endangered social order” could not be sustained. Duan was put on court on 17 of July in a close door hearing. On 24 of July the People's Procuratorate dropped the charge due to lack of evidence and Duan Lei was released from his 150-day detention.

The Xinhua news on 31 of August reported that Duan was compensated with RMB16 thousand (around USD2,200) for his 150-day detention. The amount was shared by the County's People's Procuratorate (11,798 yuan) and local police (5,000 yuan).

The car accident, which led to the death of a young man, took place in Hangzhou on 7 of May 2009 and the driver was identified as Hu Bin, a young man with wealthy family background. It had attracted attention from all over China as the police report on the car speed was different from eye-witness account and circumstantial evidences. Moreover, very often, drivers of fatal car accidents could easily get away from criminal charges because of corrupted police practice. In this particular case, netizens were determined to act as watchdogs by digging up the driver's background, analyzing the actual car speed and following up every single detail of the police report and the court case.

In July, the court found Hu guilty and sentenced him to 3-year imprisonment. However, many netizens believed that the person who attended the court was not the real Hu Bin. They analyzed the video tape on the night of the accident and compared that with the tape from the court. Some of them called for a DNA test to prove Hu's identity.

Instead of giving evidence to prove Hu Bin's identity, the Hangzhou government released a video in which Hu was talking face to face with his teachers and reporters about his regret concerning the car accident. And the police started to take action against netizens who had “spread the rumor”.

On 24 of August, the Xinhua news reported that Hubei police had arrested Xiong Zhongjun who had been blogging about the incident and questioning the identity of Hu from July 20 to August 2. The report said that Xiong had disrupted public security by spreading rumors and the Hubei police would detain him for 10 days according to existing police regulation.

As so many bloggers and netizens had written about the case, blogger Zhang Hongfeng decided to turn himself and two other bloggers Cheng Dalin and Yao Xiaoyuan in, who were more influential than Xiong. Zhang is now collecting a list of bloggers who are willing to turn themselves in.

Of course, this is an action to protect against the Hangzhou police whose initial report on the car speed had outraged the public in the first place. Who had disrupted public peace and security? The police or the bloggers? Zhang Hongfeng asked.

Recently in Aug 03, a 16-year-old male student, surnamed Deng, was beaten to death in a “youth center” at Pangyu, Guangzhou. According to news report, Deng was sent to and locked up at the youth center in the afternoon on 1st of August. By 3 a.m, he was certified dead by local health authority. Several trainers from the youth center were arrested and charged for beating Deng to death.

The report also mentioned that Deng parent had paid RMB 7000 yuans to the center for one month's service for “helping their children to build confidence and get rid of bad habit”, in this case, Internet addiction. The center was run like a prison house and all the children there were under 24 hours strict monitor. The contract said that the center “would not exclude the use of suffering and punishment in order to educate the children. But the measure would not be harmful to the children's health.”

There are more than 300 clinics over China for treating Internet addiction. Even though the inhumane method of electroshock has been banned, there will be other forms of torture for “curing” web addiction given the existence of such “huge market”.

According to statistic, there are now 338 million Internet users in China, and among them 160 millions are youth, and 10% of which is defined as Internet addict.

Related article at GVA.