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Please give now to support our work. Their religious, linguistic, and cultural differences are deemed evidence of disloyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.
Much of the information is chillingly familiar. But Chinese authorities continue to enjoy impunity for these systematic rights violations. Muslim-majority countries — including democracies like Malaysia and Indonesia — have largely remained silent. While some governments have pressed China to allow independent observers into the region, China has brushed these off; only the United States has imposed some sanctions on police and companies in Xinjiang.
Many relatives of the detained living abroad have told us they still have no contact with family members in Xinjiang. Concerned governments should take action at the United Nations Human Rights Council next week by supporting the call of the UN high commissioner for human rights on China to allow independent monitoring and reporting of rights violations in Xinjiang.
In June the Information Office of the State Council released its first White Paper on the Internet outlining the government's endeavors to guarantee certain freedoms of speech on the Internet as long as the speech did not endanger state security, subvert state power, damage state honor and interests, jeopardize state religious policy, propagate heretical or superstitious ideas, or spread rumors and other content forbidden by laws and administrative regulations, among other caveats.
Entitled the "Decision of the CCP Central Committee on Certain Major Issues on Deepening Cultural System Reform and Promoting the Great Development and Great Prosperity of Socialist Culture," this document called for developing a "healthy and uplifting network culture" that will entail measures such as "step ping up guidance and management over social networks and instant messaging tools, standardiz ing the transmission order of information on the Internet, and foster ing a civilized and rational network environment.
The CCP continued to increase efforts to monitor Internet use, control content, restrict information, block access to foreign and domestic Web sites, encourage self-censorship, and punish those who violate regulations. According to news sources, more than 14 government ministries participated in these efforts, resulting in the censorship of thousands of domestic and foreign Web sites, blogs, cell phone text messages, social networking services, online chat rooms, online games, and e-mail.
He Jiahong, deputy director of the university's criminal law research center, said that courses would be taught on advanced investigation techniques, such as "how to obtain testimony from witnesses," "the observation of facial expressions," and "lie-detection techniques. CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of this video or the date it was shot. Some local governments took steps to restrict petitioning. A would-be, independent candidate in Beijing, Wu Lihong, maintained that she was given administrative detention for 15 days and then forced to go to Chongqing to prevent her from taking part in the elections. The New York Times stated that the leak suggests discontent inside the Communist Party relating to the crackdown in Xinjiang.
These measures were not universally effective. A State Council regulation deemed personal blogs, computer bulletin boards, and cell phone text messages as part of the news media, which subjected these media to state restrictions on content. Internet service providers were instructed to use only domestic media-news postings, to record information useful for tracking users and their viewing habits, to install software capable of copying e-mails, and to end immediately transmission of "subversive material.
The Ministry of Public Security, which monitors the Internet under guidance from the CCP, employed thousands of persons at the national, provincial, and local levels to monitor electronic communications. Official monitoring focused on such tools as social networking, micro-blogging, and video-sharing sites.
The Information Office announced the formation of a new bureau in April. This new agency, officially called the Internet News Coordination Bureau, often referred to as Bureau Nine, operates under the State Council Information Office and is mainly responsible for "guidance, coordination, and other work related to the construction and management of Web culture. In July central government authorities ordered all public spaces offering free wireless Internet access to install costly software that would enable police to identify users of the service.
By October the Beijing municipal government launched a free wireless Internet service that required registration with a user's cell phone number, linked to a user's real identity information. The government's free wireless Internet service also denied access to commercial virtual private network VPN services.

Major news portals, which reportedly were complying with secret government orders, required users to register using their real names and identification numbers to comment on news articles. Individuals using the Internet in public libraries were required to register using their national identity card. Internet usage reportedly was monitored at all terminals in public libraries.
The government consistently blocked access to Web sites it deemed controversial, especially those discussing Taiwan and Tibetan independence, underground religious and spiritual organizations, democracy activists, and the Tiananmen massacre. The government also at times blocked access to selected sites operated by major foreign governments, news outlets, health organizations, educational institutions, NGOs, and social networking sites, as well as to search engines that allow rapid communication or organization of users.
Some Web sites included images of cartoon police officers that warn users to stay away from forbidden content. Operators of Web portals, blog-hosting services, and other content providers engaged in self-censorship to ensure their servers were free from politically sensitive content. Domestic Web sites that refused to self-censor political content were shut down, and many foreign Web sites were blocked. Millions of citizens had Twitter-like microblogs that circulated some news banned in the national media.
The microblogs themselves were censored but often hours or days after the posting had been seen by many people. Public relations consultant Chen Hong established a Web site that let people post anonymous tips on official bribery, which proved wildly popular and short lived. Chen's Web site drew , unique visitors in two weeks. Its anonymous posts discussed bribery at many levels including officials who demanded luxury cars and villas to police officers who needed inducements not to issue traffic tickets. Some posts identified doctors receiving cash under the table to ensure safe surgical procedures.
Mainstream media spread word about the site, amplifying the outrage among Internet users. Government authorities subsequently pressured the owner to shut down the site. Authorities employed an array of technical measures to block sensitive Web sites based in foreign countries. The ability of users to access such sensitive sites varied from city to city.
The government also automatically censored e-mail and Web chats based on an ever-changing list of sensitive key words, such as "Falun Gong" and "Tibetan independence. Information on proxy servers outside China and software for defeating official censorship was readily available inside the country. However, the government increasingly blocked access to the Web sites and proxy servers of commercial VPN providers.
Despite official monitoring and censorship, during the year dissidents and political activists continued to use the Internet to advocate and call attention to political causes such as prisoner advocacy, political reform, ethnic discrimination, corruption, and foreign policy concerns. Web users spanning the political spectrum complained of censorship. The blogs of a number of prominent activists, artists, scholars, and university professors were sometimes blocked or closed during the year. There were numerous press reports on purported cyber attacks against foreign Web sites that carried information offensive to the government.
Authorities continued to jail numerous Internet writers for peaceful expression of political views. On February 26, police in Yunxi County, Hubei Province, detained Chen Yonggang and held him for eight days on suspicion of "insulting and slandering others" after Chen posted articles online alleging that local officials and businessmen had been colluding to embezzle money in the name of engineering projects.

On March 5, public security officials in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, detained democracy activist Zhu Yufu for "inciting subversion of state power" in connection with the Internet-based Jasmine Revolution protest calls. Zhu had posted a poem entitled "It's Time" that included a call for people to "come into the public square.
Zhu previously served seven years for "subversion of state power" following the crackdown on the CDP that he helped found. He was also imprisoned between and In October the revised State Secrets Law came into effect. An article published on Xinhua Net stressed the responsibility of providers of telecommunications services, especially Internet companies, to "stop the leaking of state secrets on the Internet in a timely fashion.
Furthermore, they must comply with the authorities' orders when told to delete such information from their Web sites. Internet companies that fail to comply with the revised law are subject to punishment by the relevant departments such as the police and the Ministry of State Security. Her purported crime was "disturbing social order.
She was reportedly warned not leave Zhangyuan County. According to Reporters Without Borders' statistics, there were 30 reporters and 68 cyberdissidents in prison. Regulations prohibit a broad range of activities that authorities interpret as subversive or slanderous to the state. The government continued restrictions on academic and artistic freedom and political and social discourse at colleges, universities, and research institutes.
Instructors generally were told not to raise certain sensitive topics in class, such as the Tiananmen massacre. The General Administration of Press and Publications, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, and the Central Propaganda Department were active in issuing restrictive regulations and decisions that constrained the flow of ideas and people.
Authorities on a few occasions blocked entry into the country of individuals deemed politically sensitive and declined to issue passports to Chinese citizens selected for international exchange programs who were seen as politically unreliable, in particular individuals from minority nationality areas. During the year information outreach, educational exchanges, and other cultural and public diplomacy programs organized by foreign governments increasingly were subject to government interference particularly after Arab Spring movements began in the Middle East.
While in many cases government officials simply denied requests for events, claiming it was "inconvenient" to hold them at that time, in other cases government officials would approve events and then cancel them before they were scheduled to occur, sometimes within hours of the events' start time.
During a multicity tour by an international theatrical troupe performing a play that touched on freedom of speech issues, scheduled post-performance talks at several universities were canceled, for no given reason. The visiting performers had activities disrupted and were obstructed in attempts to meet with ethnic minority artists.
A number of other foreign government-sponsored exchange selectees, particularly those from minority provinces, encountered difficulties gaining approval to travel to participate in their programs. In April the Chinese Embassy in Moscow declined to issue a visa to a Russian filmmaker invited to participate in a foreign government-sponsored film festival in Beijing. The government used political attitudes and affiliations as criteria for selecting persons for the few government-sponsored study abroad programs but did not impose such restrictions on privately sponsored students.
The government and the party controlled the appointment of high-level officials at universities. While CCP membership was not always a requirement to obtain a tenured faculty position, scholars without CCP affiliation often had fewer chances for promotion. Researchers, authors and academics residing abroad also were subject to sanctions, including denial of visas, from the authorities when their work did not meet with official approval.