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In China, more calls for media freedom
By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator
Premier Wen Jiabao says freedom will be "irresistable" in China, although the government censored his remarks. (AP/Yves Logghe)
Today, members of China's Communist Party Central Committee met in Beijing to open a three-day discussion on the country's next five-year development plan. And while they're unlikely to openly debate a recent letter by 23 senior Party members, which called for sweeping reforms of China's media censorship policies, it will certainly be in the air.
Though much of the news of the Nobel Prize going to Liu Xiaobo was suppressed in China's public media, Central Committee members have privileged access to foreign news and are well aware of the award.
On Friday, through an online letter called "On Liu Xiaobo and the Nobel Peace Prize," more than 100 Chinese scholars, activists and lawyers called for democratic reforms, along with the release of Liu and other political prisoners. "We are urging measures to be taken as soon as possible so that Liu Xiaobo be freed, that he be reunited with his wife Liu Xia and that he go to Oslo himself to receive the prize," the online letter's authors wrote. Access to the letter is blocked within China, of course.
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By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator
Premier Wen Jiabao says freedom will be "irresistable" in China, although the government censored his remarks. (AP/Yves Logghe)
Today, members of China's Communist Party Central Committee met in Beijing to open a three-day discussion on the country's next five-year development plan. And while they're unlikely to openly debate a recent letter by 23 senior Party members, which called for sweeping reforms of China's media censorship policies, it will certainly be in the air.
Though much of the news of the Nobel Prize going to Liu Xiaobo was suppressed in China's public media, Central Committee members have privileged access to foreign news and are well aware of the award.
On Friday, through an online letter called "On Liu Xiaobo and the Nobel Peace Prize," more than 100 Chinese scholars, activists and lawyers called for democratic reforms, along with the release of Liu and other political prisoners. "We are urging measures to be taken as soon as possible so that Liu Xiaobo be freed, that he be reunited with his wife Liu Xia and that he go to Oslo himself to receive the prize," the online letter's authors wrote. Access to the letter is blocked within China, of course.
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