Crackdown or conciliation:

China's politburo split over response to Uighur violence
The unrest that claimed 184 lives last week has again forced Beijing to question its reaction to calls for regional autonomy

By Emma Graham-Harrison
Sunday, 12 July 2009SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
The script is jarringly familiar. Bodies lie on riot-scarred streets in an ethnic minority area, troops patrol and Beijing denounces overseas enemies bent on splitting China.

Less than 18 months ago, when the violence was in Tibet, China responded harshly, and tight security has been in place ever since. But as discontent played out in energy-rich Xinjiang last week, analysts say there was almost certainly a parallel debate taking place within the secretive Communist Party about where policy on ethnic minorities went wrong.

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Angry Uighurs defy Chinese police

New protests have flared in Urumqi, two days after 156 people died and 800 were injured in the western Chinese city.
At least 200 Uighurs faced off against police in Urumqi on Tuesday following news that 1,434 people were arrested in connection with Sunday's riots.
Quentin Sommerville was there.
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140 killed in western China after Uighur riots and security crackdown

From Times Online
July 6, 2009
One hundred and forty people have been killed and more than 800 wounded in riots that rocked the western China at the weekend, the deadliest social unrest since the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Running battles raged through the city of Urumqi throughout Sunday, pitting members of the Uighur minority against ethnic Han Chinese. Witnesses said that up to 3,000 rioters went on the rampage, smashing buses and overturning police barricades during several hours of violence.

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Anger in China over web censorship

China has delayed a plan requiring all new computers sold in the country to be equipped with internet filtering software. The Green Dam software has become a major topic of discussion in the blogosphere. The BBC's Krassimira Twigg looks at what bloggers and netizens have had to say about it.

China has set up comprehensive net surveillance
Internet censorship has been one of the most widely discussed subjects in blogs, message forums and social media networks in China over the past month.

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Xinhua: the world’s biggest propaganda agency

On the eve of the 56th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, Reporters Without Borders releases a report of an investigation into the role of the news agency Xinhua News Agency in the system of propaganda and censorship put in place by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
With less than three years to go before the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the worldwide press freedom organisation calls on the Chinese government to reform the state-run media.
Although it is more and more regularly cited as a credible source - nearly one third of the news reports on China selected by Google News originate from the agency - Xinhua, the head of which has the rank of minister, is the linchpin of control of the Chinese media.
Successor to the agency, Red China that was founded by Mao Zedong, Xinhua adopted its current name in January 1937. Since October 1949, this state-run news agency has been completely subordinate to the CCP.
The Reporters Without Borders’ report includes accounts from several Xinhua journalists who agreed, on condition of anonymity, to explain how the control imposed by the CCP’s Propaganda Department operates on a daily basis.
With the help of former French journalist on Xinhua, Reporters Without Borders exposes the distortion of facts, hatred for its enemies (particularly the United States and Japan) and its support, through the treatment of international news, for the world’s worst regimes.
Despite a certain economic liberalisation of the media sector, Xinhua remains the voice of the sole party. Hand-picked journalists, who are regularly indoctrinated, produce reports for the Chinese media that give the official point of view and others - classified “internal reference” for the country’s leaders.
After being criticised for its lack of transparency, particularly during the Sars epidemic, Xinhua has for last few months been putting out news reports embarrassing to the government, but they are designed to fool the international community, since they are not published in Chinese.

China's dehumanizing brutality in Tibet exposed

Tibet as a nation and culture is going through 'death sentence' and Tibetans are suffering the real 'hell on earth' under China's oppression. This video exposes the cruel & harsh reality

Dalai Lama urges pressure over 'Tibet Oppression'

Jun 5, 2009
THE HAGUE (AFP) — Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, urged the international community Friday to make an independent assessment of the situation in the region and put pressure on China to end the "oppression".
"Please, international community, judge whether there is a problem or not. Go there and investigate," he told members of the Dutch parliament on the final day of a three-day visit.
"In the case the majority of people genuinely are happy, then our information is wrong ... and we will have to apologise to the Chinese government.
"If, on the other hand, there is real resentment to China's ... oppression, then tell the Chinese government they should accept the reality and should start a realistic approach. Force is not a solution."
The 73-year-old exiled Buddhist spiritual leader told MPs his faith in the Chinese government was growing "thinner" with all efforts at negotiation having failed.
Tibet's future, he stressed, lay within the People's Republic of China but with cultural and religious autonomy.
"We are not seeking separation," he said, dismissing Chinese claims he was seeking the establishment of a greater, independent Tibet.