Category: Free Speech

Chinese Communists Crush Innovative Entrepreneurs by Banning Open Internet

(p. A1) BEIJING — Jing Yuechen, the founder of an Internet start-up here in the Chinese capital, has no interest in overthrowing the Communist Party. But these days she finds herself cursing the nation’s smothering cyberpolice as she tries — and fails — to browse photo-sharing websites like Flickr and struggles to stay in touch with the Facebook friends she has made during trips to France, India and Singapore.
Gmail has become almost impossible to use here, and in recent weeks the authorities have gummed up Astrill, the software Ms. Jing and countless others depended on to circumvent the Internet restrictions that Western security analysts refer to as the Great Firewall.
By interfering with Astrill and several other popular virtual private networks, or V.P.N.s, the government has complicated the lives of Chinese astronomers seeking the latest scientific data from abroad, graphic designers shopping for clip art on Shutterstock and students submitting online applications to American universities.
If it was legal to protest and throw rotten eggs on the street, I’d definitely be up for that,” Ms. Jing, 25, said.
China has long had some of the world’s most onerous Internet restrictions. But until now, the authorities had effectively tolerated the proliferation of V.P.N.s as a lifeline for millions of people, from archaeologists to foreign investors, who rely heavily on less-fettered access to the Internet.
But earlier this week, after a number of V.P.N. companies, including StrongVPN and Golden Frog, complained that the Chi-(p. A6)nese government had disrupted their services with unprecedented sophistication, a senior official for the first time acknowledged its hand in the attacks and implicitly promised more of the same.
The move to disable some of the most widely used V.P.N.s has provoked a torrent of outrage among video artists, entrepreneurs and professors who complain that in its quest for so-called cybersovereignty — Beijing’s euphemism for online filtering — the Communist Party is stifling the innovation and productivity needed to revive the Chinese economy at a time of slowing growth.
“I need to stay tuned into the rest of the world,” said Henry Yang, 25, the international news editor of a state-owned media company who uses Facebook to follow American broadcasters. “I feel like we’re like frogs being slowly boiled in a pot.”
. . .
The vast majority of Chinese Internet users, especially those not fluent in English and other foreign languages, have little interest in vaulting the digital firewall. But those who require access to an unfiltered Internet are the very people Beijing has been counting on to transform the nation’s low-end manufacturing economy into one fueled by entrepreneurial innovation.
. . .
Avery Goldstein, a professor of contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said the growing online constraints would not only dissuade expatriates from relocating here, but could also compel ambitious young Chinese studying abroad to look elsewhere for jobs.
“If they aren’t able to get the information to do their jobs, the best of the best might simply decide not to go home,” he said.
For those who have already returned to China and who crave membership in an increasingly globalized world, the prospect of making do with a circumscribed Internet is dispiriting. Coupled with the unrelenting air pollution and the crackdown on political dissent, a number of Chinese said the blocking of V.P.N.s could push them over the edge.
“It’s as if we’re shutting down half our brains,” said Chin-Chin Wu, an artist who spent almost a decade in Paris and who promotes her work online. “I think that the day that information from the outside world becomes completely inaccessible in China, a lot of people will choose to leave.”

For the full story, see:
ANDREW JACOBS. “China Further Tightens Grip on the Internet.” The New York Times (Fri., JAN. 30, 2015): A1 & A12.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 29, 2015.)

Castro to Writers and Artists: “Against the Revolution, No Rights at All”

(p. A13) Ricardo Porro, an architect who gave lyrical expression to a hopeful young Cuban revolution in the early 1960s before he himself fell victim to its ideological hardening, died on Thursday [December 25, 2014] in Paris, where he had spent nearly half a century in exile.
. . .
Mr. Porro’s two schools have voluptuous brick domes and vaults, built by hand in the Catalan style reminiscent of Antoni Gaudí, that are almost bodily in their gentle embrace. Supporting them, and contrasting with their soft curves, are angular columns and buttresses that speak of the shattering force of revolution.
. . .
Before the schools were completed, however, artistic expression was stifled as Cuba moved into the Soviet orbit. Mr. Castro had famously answered his own rhetorical question in 1961 about the rights of writers and artists: “Within the revolution, everything. Against the revolution, no rights at all.”
Almost overnight, the art schools’ distinctive style was officially anathema. “You realize that you’ve been accused of something,” Mr. Porro recalled in “Unfinished Spaces,” a 2011 documentary directed by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray. “And then you realize that you have been judged. And then you realize you are guilty. And nobody tells you.”

For the full obituary, see:
DAVID W. DUNLAP. “Ricardo Porro, 89, Exiled Cuban Architect.” The New York Times (Tues., DEC. 30, 2014): A13.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, are added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date DEC. 29, 2014, and has the title “Ricardo Porro, Exiled Cuban Architect, Dies at 89.”)

In Defense of the “Degar-Andish”

(p. C9) “The Lonely War” begins by retelling a lesson from Ms. Fathi’s mother, imparted on the first day of third grade. “If anyone asks you whether your parents support the revolution, you must say, ‘Yes, they do.'”
. . .
As the Islamic dress code became obligatory, Ms. Fathi and her sister, Goli, faced the tyranny of a “morality” teacher at school who tried to mold them into ideal Muslim girls.
The author remained steadfastly critical through it all. “To feel human,” she writes, “we needed to retake control of our minds as well as our bodies. We waged the war on both fronts.”
. . .
Defying a ban on covering the protests any further, Ms. Fathi was under surveillance at her home and tailed by government agents; her life was threatened. She, her husband and two children left Iran in June 2009.
. . .
Her portraits of the women’s rights activists Faezeh Hashemi and Shahla Sherkat make for fascinating reading. So do her accounts of other courageous Iranian women like the lawyers Mehrangiz Kar and Shirin Ebadi (the first Muslim woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2003), who made legal challenges against discriminatory laws against women, and publishers like Shahla Lahiji who dared to print the work of those branded as “degar-andish,” literally, “those who think differently.”

For the full review, see:
NAHID MOZAFFARI. “Books of The Times; Portrait of Iran, Where Revolution Is Ideological and the Costs Are Human.” The New York Times (Thurs., Jan. 1, 2015): C9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date DEC. 31, 2014.)

The book under review is:
Fathi, Nazila. The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran. New York: Basic Books, 2014.

Free Market Tour Guide Challenges Savannah’s Attack on Free Speech

(p. A25) SAVANNAH, Ga. — Especially when she sips French onion soup at a restaurant that was featured in the Julia Roberts movie “Something to Talk About,” Michelle Freenor is an irrepressible tour guide.
She rattles off the history of Methodism in this city, as well as tidbits about William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea. She discusses the canopy of Spanish moss that hangs above Savannah’s streets, whether “Jingle Bells” was actually composed here, and just how haunted one of the country’s largest historic landmark districts might be.
But Ms. Freenor has also emerged in recent weeks in a new role: plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that could reshape Savannah’s lucrative and potent tourism industry. Backed by a nonprofit law firm with libertarian leanings, Ms. Freenor and three others, including her husband, are challenging the Savannah ordinance that requires tour guides to hold licenses and pass regular academic and medical examinations.
“It’s the free market that made us successful, not the City of Savannah,” said Ms. Freenor, 43. “You shouldn’t have to pass a test to be able to tell people where the best ice cream in Savannah is.”
. . .
“What tour guides do is talk for a living,” said Robert Johnson, one of Ms. Freenor’s lawyers. “They’re just like stand-up comedians, journalists or novelists. And in this country, you don’t need a license from the government to be able to talk.”

For the full story, see:
ALAN BLINDER. “Lawsuit May Reshape Tourist Industry in History-Rich Savannah.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., DEC. 21, 2014): A25 & A31.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 20, 2014. The online version says that the New York paper version of the article started on p. 28. It does not say on what page of that edition, the article continued. My page numbers are from the National Edition, which I usually receive.)

Marxist Chinese Education Minister Bans “Western Values” from Textbooks and Lectures

(p. D8) This week [the week starting Sun. January 25, 2015], China’s ideological drive against Western liberal ideas broadened to take in a new target: foreign textbooks.
Meeting in Beijing with the leaders of several prominent universities, Education Minister Yuan Guiren laid out new rules restricting the use of Western textbooks and banning those sowing “Western values.”
“Strengthen management of the use of original Western teaching materials,” Mr. Yuan said at a meeting with university officials, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. “By no means allow teaching materials that disseminate Western values in our classrooms.”
The strictures on textbooks are the latest of a succession of measures to strengthen the Communist Party’s control of intellectual life and eradicate avenues for spreading ideas about rule of law, liberal democracy and civil society that it regards as dangerous contagions, which could undermine its hold on power.
On Jan. 19, the leadership issued guidelines demanding that universities make a priority of ideological loyalty to the party, Marxism and Mr. Xi’s ideas.
Mr. Yuan’s message this week spelled out how universities should do that.
“Never allow statements that attack and slander party leaders and malign socialism to be heard in classrooms,” he said, according to the Xinhua report. “Never allow teachers to grumble and vent in the classroom, passing on their unhealthy emotions to students.”

For the full story, see:
CHRIS BUCKLEY. “China Warns Against ‘Western Values’ in Imported Textbooks.” The New York Times (Sat., JAN. 31, 2015): A9.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed words, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 30, 2015.)

Justice on the Plains

(p. 71) “What are you doing here?” the judge asked again.
“I cannot talk,” Ehrlich answered, in his hybrid English-German. “This guard will stab my heart out.”
“You talk to me,” Judge Alexander told him. “Now what are you people here for? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Pit-schur.”
“What’s that? A picture?”
“Yah.”
An officer produced the picture that Ehrlich kept in his house–Kaiser Wilhelm and his family in formal pose.
“That’s a beautiful picture,” the judge said, then turned to the police. “Is that all you got against these people?”
“They’re pro-German. They’re hurting the war effort. Spies, for all we know.”
The judge turned to the Germans from the Volga. “How many of you are supporting America in the war?” All hands went up.
Ehrlich reached into his pocket and produced two hundred dollars’ worth of government stamps issued to support the war effort . A friend produced war bonds. The judge looked at the sheriff and asked him how many of his officers had war bonds or stamps. None.
(p. 72) “Take these people home,” the judge said. “If anything happens to them, I’ll hold you responsible .” They drove back in the freezing predawn darkness and released the men to their families at sunrise. A daylong party followed.

Source:
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
(Note: italics in original.)

Billionaire Risks All for Hong Kong Freedom

(p. A11) Hong Kong If Chinese soldiers crush Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, there’s little doubt media tycoon Jimmy Lai will be high on their wanted list. His Apple Daily newspaper and Next magazine cheer on the movement for universal suffrage. He bankrolls the city’s pro-democracy political parties, as financial records stolen by hackers show. The government-owned media accuse him of fomenting a “color revolution” at the behest of the American government. . . .
But Mr. Lai’s activities this week are not hard to track. From about 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., he sits in the protesters’ encampment outside the main government offices. Most of the time he can be found at one of the makeshift supply pavilions labeled “materials stand,” chatting with students or listening to speeches.
On Friday morning, I find Mr. Lai at the encampment reading essays by Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu, and we walk to a nearby food court to chat. Two photographers from a pro-Beijing newspaper conspicuously record our meeting.

For the full interview, see:
HUGO RESTALL. “Hong Kong’s Billionaire Democrat; Despite threats and smears from Beijing, Jimmy Lai talks about his support for student protesters in Hong Kong and why they might succeed.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Oct. 4, 2014): A11.
(Note: italics in original; ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date Oct. 3, 2014.)

China May Have Higher Incomes, But India Has Freedom and Hope

(p. A11) The author remains generally optimistic about India’s prospects. Economic reforms that began in 1991 have quickened growth. On average, GDP has grown nearly 7% a year since then. Thanks to a media revolution that began in the 1990s and has exploded over the past decade, a state-owned monopoly over television news has given way to upward of 450 raucous channels that make Fox News look staid by comparison. The author argues that together these two trends have sparked a kind of virtuous cycle: Better-educated and better-fed Indians are demanding more from their politicians. A take-no-prisoners media will keep them on their toes.
. . .
Educated Indians can’t stop complaining about the politicians who lead them. Yet, echoing the historian Ramachandra Guha, Mr. Denyer argues that India’s main success since its independence in 1947 has been political rather than economic. It has strengthened its democratic institutions and nurtured religious and cultural pluralism. Despite the fact that the average Indian earned $1,500 last year, less than a fourth of the average Chinese, it is in New Delhi, not Beijing, that you can afford to call the president (or prime minister) a blithering idiot without worrying about a midnight knock on the door.

For the full review, see:
SADANAND DHUME. “BOOKSHELF; Book Review: ‘Rogue Elephant’ by Simon Denyer; The average Indian earns less than the average Chinese. But it’s in New Delhi–not Beijing–where you can call the prime minister an idiot without worrying about a knock on the door.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., July 28, 2014): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date July 27, 2014, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Book Review: ‘Rogue Elephant’ by Simon Denyer; The average Indian earns less than the average Chinese. But it’s in New Delhi–not Beijing–where you can call the prime minister an idiot without worrying about a knock on the door.”)

The book being reviewed is:
Denyer, Simon. Rogue Elephant: Harnessing the Power of India’s Unruly Democracy. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2014.

Cardinal Explained to Emperor that It Is OK to Lie to Heretics

Notwithstanding the assurances that the pope, the council, and the emperor had given him, Hus was almost immediately vilified and denied the opportunity to speak in public. On November 28, barely three weeks after he arrived, he was arrested on order of the cardinals and taken to the prison of a Dominican monastery on the banks of the Rhine. There he was thrown into an underground cell through which all the filth of the monastery was discharged. When he fell seriously ill, he asked that an advocate be appointed to defend his cause, but he was told that, according to canon law, no one could plead the cause of a man charged with heresy. In the face of protests from Hus and his Bohemian supporters about the apparent violation of his safe-conduct, the emperor chose not to intervene. He was, it was said, uncomfortable about what seemed a violation of his word, but an English cardinal had reportedly reassured him that “no faith need be kept with heretics.”

Source:
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
(Note: this quote is from somewhere on pp. 167-168; I bought the Kindle version which does not give page numbers correctly and I can’t recover pages on this one from Google books; I would guess it is all on p. 168.)

“Et La Liberté!”

(p. C7) [A] milestone in the diary comes in 1943 when [Guéhenno’s] students are drafted into compulsory work service in Germany; many escape to Spain or join resistance groups. Nor was Guéhenno exempt from the repression. That same year he was demoted by the Vichy education minister to the rank of a beginning instructor, assigned to teach 17 hours of class a week rather than the usual six and faced with supervising hundreds of students. “Stammering with fatigue,” he wondered how he would have time to keep his diary going. But he cheered up whenever he contemplated how many of the authors in his curriculum were bona fide revolutionaries: “Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Danton, Robespierre, Chénier, Hugo, Michelet …, I have nothing to discuss but suspects.” He liked to end his class sessions by shouting “Et la liberté!”

For the full review, see:
Alice Kaplan. “Shedding Light on Nazi-Occupied Paris.” The New York Times (Thurs., JUNE 26, 2014): C7.
(Note: ellipsis in original; words in brackets were added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JUNE 25, 2014.)

The book being reviewed is:
Guéhenno, Jean. Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944: Collaboration, Resistance, and Daily Life in Occupied Paris. Translated by David Ball. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Dogs, and Movie About Dog, Banned in Iran

(p. D6) In Jafar Panahi’s new movie, a writer in Iran smuggles his pet dog into his home inside a tote bag. The film, “Closed Curtain,” addresses Iranian lawmakers’ recent ban on dog-walking in public, part of an effort to curb perceived Western influences including keeping pets. For two decades, Mr. Panahi has captured such vagaries of life in his native country.
“Closed Curtain,” which won the best screenplay award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013, opens at New York City’s Film Forum on July 9. It is Mr. Panahi’s second film since December 2010, when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court banned him from making movies for 20 years.

For the interview with Panahi, see:
TOBIAS GREY. “An Iranian Director’s Best Friend.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., June 27, 2014): D6.
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date June 26, 2014, an has the title “Iranian Director Flouts Ban on Filming.”)