China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.
China Internet writer missing after reporting worker protest
Agence France-presse
27 October 2005
A businessman who reported online about steel worker protests in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing has disappeared and is believed to be in police custody, rights groups said.
Shi Xiaoyu was taken from his home in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province on October 20, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
He had been posting information on the Internet about Chongqing steel worker protests that began in August. Sympathetic to their struggle, he was in touch with the workers' representatives, the group said.
Two protesters were killed and scores injured in mid-October when police broke up one such protest, the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin reported earlier. Chinese media have not reported the crackdown.
Another rights group, China Rights Defenders, said police began monitoring Shi in early October.
Chongqing police traveled to his home on October 19, and on the following day they seized him and confiscated his computer and other materials, it said.
Local rights advocates are sometimes the only source of information about workers' and farmers' protests, which the local media are barred from covering.
The advocates are frequently targeted by authorities in an effort to stop the flow of information.
On October 4, Yang Maodong, a writer and activist more commonly known by his pseudonym Guo Feixiong, was officially arrested on allegations of "gathering crowds to disturb public order."
Yang disappeared in mid-September in Guangdong province, where he had been advising residents staging a campaign against what they said was a corrupt village chief in Taishi.
Yang was a primary source of information for the press and had posted his reports on a bulletin board called Yannan, which was shut down in September.
Police cracked down on the protests in Guangdong, beating and arresting residents of Taishi and harassing foreign journalists who traveled to the town. Only Yang remains imprisoned.
China Internet writer missing after reporting worker protest
Agence France-presse
27 October 2005
A businessman who reported online about steel worker protests in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing has disappeared and is believed to be in police custody, rights groups said.
Shi Xiaoyu was taken from his home in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province on October 20, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
He had been posting information on the Internet about Chongqing steel worker protests that began in August. Sympathetic to their struggle, he was in touch with the workers' representatives, the group said.
Two protesters were killed and scores injured in mid-October when police broke up one such protest, the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin reported earlier. Chinese media have not reported the crackdown.
Another rights group, China Rights Defenders, said police began monitoring Shi in early October.
Chongqing police traveled to his home on October 19, and on the following day they seized him and confiscated his computer and other materials, it said.
Local rights advocates are sometimes the only source of information about workers' and farmers' protests, which the local media are barred from covering.
The advocates are frequently targeted by authorities in an effort to stop the flow of information.
On October 4, Yang Maodong, a writer and activist more commonly known by his pseudonym Guo Feixiong, was officially arrested on allegations of "gathering crowds to disturb public order."
Yang disappeared in mid-September in Guangdong province, where he had been advising residents staging a campaign against what they said was a corrupt village chief in Taishi.
Yang was a primary source of information for the press and had posted his reports on a bulletin board called Yannan, which was shut down in September.
Police cracked down on the protests in Guangdong, beating and arresting residents of Taishi and harassing foreign journalists who traveled to the town. Only Yang remains imprisoned.