CHINA: China's citizen reporters clamber across the country trying to provide something in short supply - uncensored news

Dozens of people remain behind bars in China for reporting uncensored news on the Internet, but that has not stopped some brave citizens from taking risks to tell stories. Unaccredited, under funded but no longer under the radar, China's citizen reporters clamber across the country, trying to provide something in short supply - uncensored news. China is the world's leading jailer of journalists, and at least 50 "cyber-dissidents" remain behind bars, according to human rights groups. The stability-obsessed government and limited media freedom have created a niche for citizens, who are willing to cover sensitive issues such as protests, disasters and corruption like journalists. The burgeoning use of Internet also provides them an audience and a platform to spread news quicker than government censors can control it. Zhou Shuguang, a 26-year-old small-town vegetable-seller, was hailed as China's first citizen reporter. His fame came from a series reports on his blog "zuola", mainly about a long-standing David-and-goliath battle between developers and residents, in south-western city of Chongqing in March. Wu Ping and her husband, refused to move out of their two-storey brick home, which making the house standing isolated in the middle of a huge, 10-meter-deep pit. The house was thus called "nail house". "When I found that voices from the local media weakened and disappeared, I knew the government was censoring news again, and trying to make people ignore the case, so I decided to go to there and see what is going on and put my stories on my blog for my readers," Zhou said. Zhou's continuing reports on the "nail house" provoked discussions from Internet users around the country, attracting the international media's attention to the case. Land grabs by developers, often colluded with local governments and enforced by hired thugs, have become a major source of tension in China, amidst soaring land values and home-owners' increasing awareness of individual property rights. "Almost all my cases are about house demolition, when people are unfairly treated by the government, but they had nowhere to petition and complain, they come to me," said Zhou. Huang Xudong, a 35-year-old petitioner from Hunan, is seeking help from citizen reporters. Huang's wife was burnt and seriously injured last year, when she refused to leave her house and give way to a forceful demolition. The wife is still in hospital while the husband is trying to seek some justice. Huang took his 11-year-old son with him to Beijing, in order to prevent the vengeful local officials inflicting harm to his family because of a petition. "The local media would not report on things like this, they only go with good news and ignore bad news. I went to Zhou for help, because he always reports the truth," he said. Voices from bloggers and citizen reporters have provided hope to millions of disenfranchised people all over China--left behind by the booming economy and rampant corruption that plagues all levels of the society. Local propaganda offices in China regularly prevent newspaper editors and TV station directors from reporting on sensitive issues such as high-profile corruption cases and disasters. But in the southeastern port city of Xiamen, bloggers reported a rare protest where thousands of residents marched against authorities to build a toxic chemical factory in the city. In the same month, a local website published a letter written by 400 fathers appealing for help to find their kidnapped children. The case ignited a national scandal, leading to the rescue of thousands of abducted adults and children forced to work as slaves in brick kilns in northern Shanxi province. Zhang Zuhua was a former Communist Party boss for China's law department. He quit his job and and has been working as a human rights advocate, after the government's crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989. He said China's freedom of speech would be broadened thanks to the group. "The appearance of bloggers has greatly changed the situation from before, when the channels for expression of thoughts were narrow. Each blog is a medium, and suddenly, uncountable media has appeared and in this way, the government's censorship fails to function," Zhang said. He added that even though the government can still arrest outspoken dissidents, they cannot arrest the millions bloggers who try to speak out. While government corruption, unchecked by local media may have created a market for citizen reporters to exploit, it has also created more sinister avenues for opportunists. Scams involving journalists and people posing as journalists to demand money are common in China, where the Internet is also used as a platform for muck-raking and fake news. Authorities jailed four men in October who tried to blackmail a local official by threatening to write incriminating information about the government's abuse of power in land use.

ITN Source | November 19, 2007

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