internet - Arrests, riots and other news



The peaceful scene at the picture are officials of the department of foreign affairs in the city of Qinhuangdao, destroying the pictures taken by de Japanese reporter.
As things go these days, the reporter recorded the act and wrote about it ons his weblog. (Thanks, Danwei)

It was a classic grade-B HBO moment, then they caught us all, knocking on our hourly-rate hotel room door, yelling "police!" then storming into the room asking who was who and why we were all there. About 25 more cops took our two bureau drivers, both Chinese citizens, to another cop shop after grabbing them by the arms and taking their phones away. Cops to drivers: Why are you working for the "little Japanese"? (小日本人)Were we detained? Caught? No, cop-interrogator Wang Yiming said. No, we just need you to rat out, I mean tell us what the other five were talking about in the hotel room. So I could go now, I asked half way through his questions. He didn't answer. He told me later I had a bad attitude for not telling him what was said in the hotel room during the five minutes
before his squad broke in. I indicated to him that good attitudes could also be
expressed by letting non-suspects out of custody in less than five hours.

Today we also got our dosis of reports in massive riots, for example in Anhui's Chizhou, by Reuters and they were of course beaten by ESWN by at least half a day. The problem with all this news hitting my computer is similar to what I call my mining-syndrome. A three, four years ago the internet revealed a larger mining accident, while the local authorities tried to keep it out of the media. They failed and since then every mining accident is also reported by the traditinal media. It has not helped the miners, who die every year in larger numbers, while I try not to get bored with it. That seems an interesting challenge: how to report on evil deeds of the government without losing the effect of those reports.