WP: Chinese Authorities Shut Down Publication

[DeepModem Mom]

Chinese Authorities Shut Down Publication
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 24, 2006


BEIJING, Jan. 24 -- China's ruling Communist Party suspended one of the premier publications in Chinese journalism on Tuesday, escalating the government's prolonged campaign to rein in the state media and its toughest crackdown on freedom of expression here in more than a decade.

The decision to shut down Freezing Point, a four-page weekly feature section of the state-run China Youth Daily that often tested the censors and challenged the party line, came less than a month after the authorities replaced the top editors of another daring newspaper, the Beijing News.

The China Youth Daily is the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League, a power base for President Hu Jintao. Because any move to punish it would almost certainly require his approval, the decision to close Freezing Point was seen as further evidence of Hu's personal support for a tightening of controls on the media that began two years ago.

Party officials summoned the senior editors of the China Youth Daily and ordered Freezing Point closed a day after distributing a five-page document that accused the section of "viciously attacking the socialist system" and condemned a recent article in it that criticized the history textbooks used in Chinese middle schools.

Propaganda authorities issued an order barring all media from reporting the suspension, all reporters from participating in any news conference about it and all Web sites from carrying any discussion about it, journalists said....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012401003.html

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. Sometimes you need to

appreciate what we have. As fragile as it is.

[movonne]

3. Yes, but maybe not for long...

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. All the more reason to celebrate it while we have it.

And hope for the best.

I pray, too, but that's not PC so I don't publicize it.

[bpilgrim]

2. they got RATHERED

:nuke:

peace

[951-Riverside]

5. I see they have freeps in China too

...Only a freep-minded person would allow this to go on in their country.

[Betsy Ross]

6. Who has it worse?

*Co doesn't need to shut down the media because our MSM is publishing propaganda that is swallowed by the majority of Americans.

[leesa]

7. I'll bet Dubya is soooo jealous!