There's something fishy going on in China and it's not the sweet and sour fried fish rolls. Over the last month or so the country's government has been surreptitiously censoring websites and blocking access to the internet and even to telephone lines in some places.
I started noticing this through the great informative tool that is Facebook (I promise I also read other news feeds!) when several friends posted on their profile status that China had blocked access to blogspot, the website the YJHR uses for its blog. That was about a month ago, but just this day I saw that many people who are doing summer programs in China were complaining that the government had blocked access to Facebook (How dare they!?) and the only way they could access it was through VPN Client software that modifies the computer's IP address and makes it seems as if it is coming from somewhere else in the world.
But for those that thought that the blocking of Facebook was the ultimate censoring scheme, there is more. Last month, the Chinese government announced that it will require that every single computer sold in China to have a special software, conveniently named Green Dam, that filters certain web-content. The Chinese government claims the software will only block "violent and obscene material," but, come on, we know better than that.
To make matters worse, in the province of Urumqi, where violent clashes are going on between the Han Chinese and a minority ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim, China has blocked internet, cell phones, and international phone calls. Fortunately though the Chinese government is being somewhat understanding and respectful of human rights (emphasis on somewhat) by allowing the foreign press access to the internet, but only from one of the city's main hotels from which the government can filter anything they find objectionable and can control what websites the journalists who are covering the ethnic clashes can visit. How very generous of them.
