North Korea to try reporters in June
Two US journalists arrested in North Korea near its border with China in March are set to face trial on June 4. Read more here
Tiananmen twenty years on
Twenty years ago this week, Chinese students began their occupation of Tiananmen Square, a protest that ended in a massacre. In an exclusive extract from the next issue of Index on Censorship, Wang Dan, a leading figure in the 1989 movement, talks to writer Xinran about the fallout and the legacy
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Grass-mud horse banned?
The YouTube phenomenon Song of the Grass-Mud Horse (Cao Ni Ma), has been doing the rounds since January. It’s a jaunty little children’s tune, with some rather, well, crude punning lyrics, taking a swipe at ‘harmonisation’, the PRC’s polite term for ‘censorship’.
If you haven’t seen it before, it’s here. As I’ve said, it’s a bit rude.
Anway, today it emerges that China has blocked YouTube, with the state news agency citing ‘faked videos’ of police beating Tibetans in Lhasa last year.
Could the grass-mud horse have got the whole of YouTube shut down in China? And is the Tibet story made up, because to admit censoring a popular anti-censorship video would be, well, to admit that ‘harmony’ is a little more sinister than it sounds?
YouTube blocked in China
Google said that its YouTube video-sharing website had been blocked in China.
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