Slashdot Mirror
China Blocks NYT Over Critical Article
Taco Cowboy writes "The New York Times has become the latest target of Chinese censorship. Censors of the People's Republic of China, in an almost unheard of, truly remarkable feat of neck-breaking speed, blocked the (paywalled) website of the New York Times, all because of one news article. That particular article was about the enormous wealth of the family members of a very prominent figure in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao. The wealth in question totals some USD 2.7 billion. "
(Also covered at the BBC.)
Yes. Iranian Press TV was taken down in the EU due to sanctions on Iran due to their human rights violations. And Iranian Press TV is a state run media, meaning it is part of the same government that is committing human rights abuses.
In contrast, the New York Times is not state owned media nor have its owners been accused of human rights abuses. The banning of Iranian Press TV is ethical and justified. The censorship of the New York Times is not.
Lets get the facts right on Press TV, there were not banned their right to broadcast was pulled. No site was blocked or anything of that nature just no broadcasting.
As for the reason of their right to broadcast being pulled was because they company in the UK did not have decision or editorial rights. The company was told if they wanted to broadcast as a UK company they had to have editorial decisions made in the UK, otherwise it was foreign company wanting to broadcast in the UK and had to get other permissions and pay other fees.
Also this is the UK they have a long and current history of blocking thoughts and discussions that made people upset.
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
-Animal Farm
Pay more attention to the news. The EU claimed that the antisemitism and other propaganda from these channels were human rights violations and hate crimes. The EU designated the person in charge to be personally sanctioned for these human rights abuses. The result was that all Iranian state owned channels were removed from European TV satellites. This is a different sanction than the sanctions for the nuclear program.
As far as questioning human rights violations by Iran, I have to wonder if you are an Iranian troll. The antisemitism on these channels was rampant. Only the abuses inside Iran (hanging gays, stoning women, torturing and murdering protesters, etc.) make it pale in comparison.
Um, no. Because see, it's not Iranian Press TV that got banned. It's me, and every other citizen of the EU. We got banned by our government from accessing information that neither belongs to our government nor is illegal to possess (as eg. child pornography would be), and that it therefore has no authority to withhold from us. Whether the information is false, or produced by people who kick puppies, does not enter into it. Withholding it is neither ethical nor justifiable.
Hayes failed to attend court for refusing to pay his taxes and a warrent was issued for his arrest. He was arrested and tried in a Magistrates Court (in public), not a 'secret court without a Jury'.
There is no story here. By all accounts he is a bit of a nutcase.
Nice fairy tale. He was committed to prison for 21 days for refusing to pay his council tax (or more likely for ignoring a court order to pay his tax). There was no judge or jury because it was a magistrate's court. And it ignores the lengthy process that leads up to imprisonment:
Can I be sent to prison for not paying my Council Tax?
In very rare cases your local Council may apply to the Magistrates' Court for a warrant committing you to prison in the event of non payment of Council Tax. The Council will only ever take this step when all other efforts have failed. This would include failed bailiff visits.
Before issuing a warrant of commitment the court must hold a 'means enquiry' and you must be present. You will be sent a Summons to appear. If you fail to answer to the Summons the Council will, in most cases, request that a warrant for arrest be granted. Depending on the circumstances this will be with or without bail. When you attend a 'means enquiry' you will be required to complete a very simple Income & Expenditure Calculation so that the Magistrate is able to agree an affordable level of re-payment.
A Warrant of Commitment will only be issued if the court is satisfied that the failure to pay is the result of wilful refusal or culpable neglect. This would not be the case if you cannot afford the debt. The maximum period of imprisonment is three months.
A recent Human Rights Case from the European Court that confirms that local authorities must look at all other available options before considering imprisonment.
Nonsense. It's freely available here: http://www.presstv.ir/ (works for me, I'm in the UK). What they've done is restrict companies who want to re-broadcast it. The original is still there and still accessible.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Oh come now, if Fox news were an organ of the state, you would expect its reporting to reflect the policies of the current administration rather than the past one. One could, I imagine, make a case for it being a tool of the republican party, but that probably overdramatizes the arrangement.
The summary makes it seem like China's blocking the NY Times is a some rare spectacle. It's happened before, multiple times. The explanation is generally, "we don't know why your site is inaccessible," or "it may be a technical error," but it can be assumed that you've said something they deemed dangerous or inflammatory, just as they would stop you at the border and seize your materials if you were a missionary blatantly trying to promote religion in their country.
The Times has been pushing the story for a few days on its home page, which is also unusual (an indication of how important they deem the story -- if you didn't catch it one day, you'll catch it the next... Or the next). The key here is that it's basically accusing the leader of the country of supporting massive corruption at a time when the reins are being handed over to a new group of people who will be selected in the next few weeks and control China for the next decade. The timing is seen as intended to influence China's politics at this very sensitive time and push people to call for reform. If China had NOT blocked it, THAT would have been a story.
IANAL, but in the US, speech, on its own, is protected. Let us suppose that John is an antisemite.
John paints a swastica on a synagogue. That's vandalism, and a particularly nasty form of it. In some jurisdictions it's treated as something eligible for enhanced vandalism.
John goes out and kills someone wearing a yarmulke. That's homicide, and evidence of his deranged beliefs may go a long way towards roving premeditation.
John attempts to distract everyone from the real problems of society by blaming it all on the Jews. That's protected speech. There's no underlying crime which is aggravated by his inanity.