State media in China and Iran have both offered their two cents in response to the riots that have swept the UK over the past three days. A commentator at Communist Party mouthpiece, People's Daily, opined that this sort of chaos is precisely the...
Beijing district police last month enforced regulations requiring café owners and other businesses to install web monitoring software. The software costs businesses around 20,000RMB (2,000 GBP), and provides public security officials the identities...
The aftermath of the collision of two high-speed trains near the Chinese city of Wenzhou on 23 July has demonstrated that the limits of free expression in China are being tested more than ever before. Government officials keen to stifle public...
In recent weeks there’s been a big buzz about a new anti-web censorship system called Telex developed mainly by a team of scientists from the University of Michigan. Unlike proxies and VPNs which are easily blocked by censors, Telex buries the...
Two bullet trains collided on 23 July in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, killing at least 38 people and injuring 192. In a country where people don't trust the official news media --- favouring internet posts and microblog reports instead ---...
A few days ago the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) reported that China had sentenced Tibetan writer Tashi Rabten to four years in prison for separatist activities. He had been one of several writers who penned pieces on the 2008 Tibetan...
Today, 1 July, is the Communist Party's 90th birthday. In celebration, Chinese web censors have been working feverishly to tighten their control of the internet. Those of us who try to sidestep the Great Firewall with a VPN, a service that allows...
After serving a three-and-a-half year sentence for inciting subversion, Chinese activist Hu Jia was sent home on Sunday. But like Ai Weiwei, who surfaced from detention last week, Hu is far from free. His wife told the BBC that he is being held...
When dissident artist Ai Weiwei was freed last Wednesday, his four associates were also nabbed back in April, were disturbingly absent. Now it seems that those four --- his driver, accountant, assistant and a designer --- have also been released,...
After 81 days in detention, the detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has finally been allowed to go home. His mother Gao Ying didn't sleep last night, and his sister Gao Ge told the Guardian that she is "very, very happy". While Ai is much skinnier,...