Tibet Steps Up Web Controls

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | SFTHQ

By He Ping & Yang Jiadai | Radio Free Asia | August 2, 2010

HONG KONG—Chinese authorities in Tibet have ordered Internet cafes across the region to finish installing state-of-the-art surveillance systems by the end of the month, industry sources and local media said.

“All the Internet cafes must now install it,” said Chen Jianying, head of the customer service department of the industry group Internet Cafes Online.

“This is a nationwide policy which is part of the implementation of the real-name registration system,” Chen said.

According to a report carried on the official China Tibet News website last week titled “Long-range Surveillance of the Internet,” all computers installed in enterprises that offer services to the public must install the system.

The proprietor of an Internet cafe in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, which is still under tight security following widespread Tibetan unrest beginning in March 2008, confirmed the scheme is already in full swing.

He said he had already been to the police station for training in how to run the system.

“The system should be up and running now,” the business owner said. “I heard the technical people saying that the last time I attended a meeting.”

“It’s pretty convenient because they can configure it directly from higher up if the guidelines change.”

He said the new system will mean tighter online controls.

“If there is something that is being controlled, there’s no way anyone will get to see it. It’s definitely a tighter form of control,” he said.

The China Tibet News website also reported that the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government has already inaugurated its long-range surveillance system.

Calls to the cultural department of the TAR government went unanswered during office hours Friday.

Youth ‘guidance’

Local media also reported that the department has dispatched engineers throughout Tibet to install the new system in individual Internet cafes, and to train business owners and technical staff in its operation.

Funding is already in place for the project, and all Internet cafes in the region are now effectively implementing a real-name registration system.

Under the nationwide scheme, which took effect Aug. 1, second-generation identity cards belonging to the person using the Internet must be swiped to allow online access. Viewed content can then be traced back to that identity, using the the surveillance system.

One of the touted benefits of the scheme is that it aims to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate content online.

But Zhang Tianliang, an electronic engineer and professor at George Mason University, said he believes there is another motive behind the move.

“There has to be a question mark over why the government is installing such a surveillance system in Tibet right now,” Zhang said.

“The Chinese Communist Party has always used cleaning up pornography as an excuse.”

Retired Nanjing University professor and civil rights activist Sun Wenguang agreed.

“You can’t control young people on the Internet,” Sun said. “Of course their parents can exercise appropriate guidance.”

“The starting point of the whole real-name registration policy is that they are afraid that [viewers] will see content from outside China, content that they are trying to block,” he added.

“Real-name registration will limit the amount of external information that young people are able to see, and I think that is undesirable.”

Original reporting in Mandarin by He Ping and Yang Jiadai and in Cantonese by Hai Nan. Translated from the Chinese and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Information Bridging on the Case of Tibetan Environmentalist Karma Samdrup

By Tsering

By Dechen Pemba | Global Voices Online | July 21, 2010 

The case of well-known Tibetan environmentalist, businessman and philanthropist Karma Samdrup, sentenced to 15 years in prison on June 24, 2010, by a court in Xinjiang, has been highly unusual in that those monitoring the case were able to see events unfolding almost in real time, thanks to the blog and Twitter output of Karma Samdrup’s wife, Dolkar Tso, and Karma Samdrup’s lawyer, the reknowned Chinese civil rights lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang. 

The trial of Karma Samdrup that started on June 22 ended with his heavy sentencing on June 24 on charges of “grave-robbing”, charges that had actually been dropped 12 years earlier by the authorities. Throughout those few days of the trial, Pu Zhiqiang was using Twitter to document the case as it unfolded. The verdict of 15 years was made known to Pu Zhiqiang’s followers, over 10.000 of them, just hours after it was announced. Below is a screenshot of Pu Zhiqiang’s Tweet announcing the verdict: 

At the same time, Karma Samdrup’s wife, Dolkar Tso, also present in the courtroom in Xinjiang for the duration of the trial, was also documenting events and writing about her thoughts and feelings on her blog, hosted on the popular Chinese blog portal Sohu.com. Below is a screenshot of one of Dolkar Tso’s early blogs: 

Screenshot of Dolkar Tso's blog on Sohu.com

Dolkar Tso persistently continued to use Sohu as her blog-hosting site despite her blog being closed down several times. Dolkar Tso’s blogging activities were monitored and reported by Tibetan writer, poet and blogger Woeser on her blog. Woeser was often quick to re-post articles from both Dolkar Tso and Pu Zhiqiang’s blogs before the posts were removed. 

According to Woeser’s blogposts, Dolkar Tso opened several blogs one after the other starting on June 2 with http://drolkartso.blog.sohu.com, the day when it was suddenly announced that the date of Karma Samdrup’s trial was to be postponed. This blog was shut down after just one day. 

The second blog, http://drolkar.blog.sohu.com/ was started on June 21 but was closed down after 5 days, shortly after Karma Samdrup’s sentence was announced. The post that Dolkar Tso wrote on her second blog, expressing her worries for her husband titled “Praying” was translated into English by High Peaks Pure Earth and subsequently quoted in an article in TIME magazine: 

“The account we heard … exceeded our worst imaginations,” his wife Dolkar Tso wrote in a blog post that was translated by High Peaks Pure Earth, a website that monitors Tibetan source material. “We heard about hundreds of different cruel torture methods, maltreatment around the clock, hitherto unheard of torture instruments and drugs, hard and soft tactics, and even of fellow prisoners being grouped together to extract a confession.” 

The third blog http://drolkar3.blog.sohu.com/, started on June 27 was closed down after 6 days on July 3. 

The fourth blog http://drolkar4.blog.sohu.com/ was started on July 3, the day that Karma Samdrup’s brother, environmentalist Rinchen Samdrup, was sentenced to 5 years in prison in a separate case taking place in Chamdo, Tibet. The blog was closed down after 3 days. 

The fifth blog http://drolkar5.blog.sohu.com/ was started on July 6 and appears to still be online at the time of writing, below is a screenshot of the blog: 

Screenshot of Dolkar Tso's Fifth Blog

Underneath her photograph on her blog is this passage: 

“Regardless of nationality, regardless of geography, seek only mercy and justice. No lies, no flattery, only perseverance and calm. What good comes of deleting this post or this blog?” 

Dolkar Tso (1) and Pu Zhiqiang (centre) in Xinjiang

Lawyer Pu Zhiqiang’s personal blog survived the duration of the trial and crucially he was even able to photograph and upload all 10 pages of Karma Samdrup’s sentencing documents on the evening of the sentencing. The documents were re-posted almost immediately on Woeser’s blog. 

However, on July 15, the blog was closed down, below is the error message that appears when trying to access http://puzhiqianglawyer.blog.sohu.com/ 

Since then, Pu Zhiqiang has been blogging on a new blog but still hosted on Sohu: http://lawyerpuzhiqiang.blog.sohu.com/ As he notes in the top bar of the blog, it is his 13th blog. A few days ago, ChinaGeeks reported that lawyer and blogger Liu Xiaoyuan had his Sohu blog closed down on July 12, 2010. 

Whilst an unprecedented amount of information was reaching the internet and the wider world throughout this case, what is also demonstrated here is the sheer persistence and determination required by civil society activists in the PRC to be heard using social media, as well as the importance of online networks of support to re-post articles and to spread the word on shuttered blogs that may have moved or reincarnated elsewhere.