New Statesman Tries to Bypass the Great Firewall ...

New Statesman Tries to Bypass the Great Firewall

The New Statesman’s current issue focuses on China and the magazine has created a Mandarin version of it as a PDF. Their hope is to get the publication around Chinese censors by using various torrent sites.

Via the New Statesman:

What will [Chinese readers] find inside? A story very different to the one they are told by the state-controlled press. Inside the issue, the former newspaper editor Cheng Yizhong speaks about how the Southern Metropolis Daily exposed the brutal “custody and repatriation” procedure used by the government on those without the correct ID, and the confinement and fatal beating of Sun Zhigang in 2003 (and subsequent cover-up). In 2004, Cheng was detained in secret for more than five months by the Guangdong authorities in 2004 for “economic crimes”, before being released.

In an exclusive essay, Cheng recounts the stifling conditions of media censorship in China, opening up about a media culture bombarded by “prohibitions” and riddled with informers who report directly to the government, in which only a minority of journalists are brave enough to fight the system.

Also in the issue is an interview conducted by activist artist Ai Weiwei of “a member of the “50 cent party” - a commenter paid half a dollar every time he derails an online debate in China”; Tibetan issues; persecution of human rights lawyers; and how artists of all stripes learn how to self-censor in order to succeed.

To preempt their domain — and the articles — from being blocked within China, the publication has uploaded the PDF version of the issue onto file sharing sites, writing, “Here is a direct link to the PDF, here is a link to the torrent file, here is a magnet link for the torrent, and here is a mirror of the torrent on Kickass Torrents. Please share.”

New Statesman, Taking on the Great Firewall of China.

Image: Ai Weiwei on the cover of the current issue of the New Statesman.

H/T: BoingBoing