South China Morning Post - AFP, 25 May, 2014
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| Online activist and blogger Zhang Jialong (first left) in the meeting with John Kerry in Beijing in February. Photo: Reuters |
A Chinese
blogger who called on US Secretary of State John Kerry to push for Internet
freedom in China has been fired by his employer, he told AFP on Sunday.
Journalist
Zhang Jialong was one of four bloggers who met with Kerry in February, where he
urged the United States to help “tear down the great Internet firewall”.
Beijing
tightly censors the Internet, banning websites including Facebook and Twitter
with a system labelled the “Great Firewall of China”, and ordering domestic
Internet firms to delete content that government officials deem “sensitive”.
Zhang’s
employer Tencent dismissed him on Friday for “leaking business secrets and
other confidential and sensitive information”, he said, calling it a reprisal
for his meeting with Kerry.
Zhang said
that authorities at Tencent, one of China’s best known Internet firms, told him
his dismissal was prompted by the meeting, and his posting online of censorship
orders issued by China’s government.
Directives
published by Zhang included an instruction for websites to delete a video by a
Taiwanese singer because it briefly showed “a man on an ambulance wearing a
Free Tibet scarf”.
“Tencent
told me they reached the decision after consulting with the government, so it’s
a political decision,” Zhang said, adding that “the situation for online
freedom in China is getting worse”.
Tencent’s
Beijing office could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.
China has
more than 600 million Internet users, the largest online population in the
world.
Its ruling
party has long been engaged in a “cat and mouse” game with Internet users,
tightening restrictions in periodic crackdowns before new forums emerge to
challenge restraints.
The rising
popularity of microblogs in recent years has triggered a government-backed
campaign to assert greater control over social media.
China’s
Supreme Court last year said Internet users could face three years in jail if
“slanderous” information spread online was viewed more than 5,000 times or
forwarded more than 500 times.
Hundreds
have been detained under the regulation, according to rights groups.
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