The freedom of speech in China
August 11, 2013 There is no Facebook or Twitter in China. China may have the world’s most strict censorship and monitoring system, and it has been pushed to its limits to control sensitive political topic such as Tiananmen Square, 2010 Nobel Prize winners Liu Xiaobo and so on. If you use Chinese search engine named Baidu, those kind of topics will be told that according to relevant laws, regulations and policies, some search results did not show. People are becoming aware of things that their nation tried to keep them blind from previously. Basically, government uses as advanced technology as just to make sure block some information they don’t want to people know. According to the latest research that from Reporters Without Borders which is basically France-based international a non-profit, non-organization and that help and defend the right of freedom of speech. They make a research that finds the index ranking of countries about their freedoms concerning speech, placed China at 174 out of the 179 listed countries. (2013) It is hard to imagine that being a long history of civilianization and the second economic group country is bottom seventh. How did china form its constitution and become the way people just have few freedom of speech? As known to us, China has a long history that is almost five thousand years. Generally speaking, one dynasty ends and other dynasty begins. The last dynasty is Qing dynasty which end in 1911. Sun Yat-sen who is the first president and founding father of the Republic of China leads a revolution to overthrow Qing dynasty. He makes up a new government and announces the Three People's Principles (Nationalism, Democracy, the People's Livelihood). Democracy tells people the freedom of speech and press, association and demonstration. The nationalist party was defeated by communist party. The People’s Republic of China was found in October 1,1949. The country revised the constitution many times until 1982. The most important influenced law about freedom of speech is that two articles of the current Chinese constitution, written in 1982 said “Article 35 : citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.” Besides, “Article 41 : Citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions regarding any state organ or functionary.” ( Freedom)
Two articles explain what rights citizens have in detail. We can see the freedom of speech right from the Article 35 and 41. Those looks like guarantee people can speak whatever they want and be permitted to criticize the government in public. Looking back in history, for example, Tiananmen Square happened in 1989 during summer. Because the country was filled with high inflation price and unemployment of rate economic corruption within Communalist Party. The most important reason is that Western’s liberty and multi-party system thoughts spread into China, the college students, advanced thoughts and consciousness, think it is time high that China achieved democracy to solve the problem existed. Therefore, the student starts their protest without violence and sit in Tiananmen Square for weeks. The march spread quickly and other places also have this kind of activities, while more than a million occupied the Tiananmen Square. The government finally took cruel and violence actions to disperse student’s demonstration by using Chinese army, killing almost one hundred in response to the peaceful protest. The Chinese government said that the students was made use of by bad people to overthrow the communist and setup new country. This was what Chinese government did. Students just want to justice and democracy. The Chinese government sent tanks to give great pressure to student even kill them. This is really ridiculous things. Most important is that government actually block all of information and material about this event from the Internet. All I knew this since I come to us and watched some video on YouTube. I am pretty sure that few of people actually know about his event among peers. After time went by, the government thinks people will forget what they do. They totally wrong, the history will remember their crime action and never forget. According to “41 article” that people can criticize and make suggestions to government. As the citizen, if you find something government need to be fixed, do you best you can. The goal of this article is to make government better. Liu Xiaobo who is 2010 Nobel prize winner for peace is in jail right now. He did not appear in Courtesy of Reuters. He used to publish some articles about democracy. Before government put him in jail, he was working on book named Charter 08 mainly taking freedom of speech and independence of judicature and signed by over 350 Chinese intellectuals and human right activists. (Charter)This book just have a print edition online that means Chinese could not read in China. Ridiculously, Liu Xiaobo was accused of “inciting subversion of state power” with the publication of Charter 08. Furthermore, I was shock by that According to “Obsessive controls to counter the specter of Arab Spring” we know that “Arbitrary detentions, unfair trials, repressive regulations and harsh sentences have recently multiplied, taking special aim at cyberdissidents. Seventy-eight of them are still in jail for their online activities, making China the world’s biggest prison for netizens. Its victims include: • Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who is still behind bars; • Cyberdissidents Chen Xi and Chen wei, respectively sentenced to 11 and 9 years for “subversion”; “Obsessive controls to counter the specter of Arab Spring” also state that Cyberdissident Li Tie, who received a 10-year sentence for subversion; • Liu Xianbin, sentenced to a 10-year term for “inciting subversion of the government”; • Human rights activist and cyberdissident Govruud Huuchinhuu, beaten while in detention; • Lawyer Ni Yulan and her husband Dong Jiqin , awaiting sentencing; • Netizen Hu Di, forcefully interned in a psychiatric ward.” (Obsessive ) There is no doubt there are still many people still in jail because of Charter 08 or saying something about democracy. Those people usually put in jail and then police torture them . For example, Lawyer Ni Yulan who took photo that government illegally pull down the private house. She was arrested to police station where she was tortured for several day and was injured by using wheelchair right now. (Mary) According to the behavior of government, I have a simple conclusion that if you have issues with government, government can charge you anytime and anything to restrict your freedom. Generally, it is impossible for Chinese to get this kind of information. Government uses propaganda regime and massive Internet surveillance system heavily restrict free speech. For example, Chinese government use ''The great firewall of China'' refers to the official Chinese censorship of information between the global Internet and the Chinese Internet. Through this firewall, Chinese people can only access websites that their government has approved. China has strict rules on what information an Internet user can access while the Chinese Constitution explicitly protects the right to free speech.” (Anaa) Most of Chinese getting news from Internet and newspaper which already is “cleaned”. Apparently, the freedom of speech is totally limited in China. If you want to express your own feeling and have different opinions with government like democracy and liberty in public, government probably put you in jail for ten years. Personally, I think government should have to follow the constitution and give the freedom of speech to people.
Work cited
Anna Svensson. The Great Firewall - Freedom of Speech on the Internet in China. Lung University. 2007. Web. 8 AUG 2013.= firewall
Charter 08 for reform and democracy in China. No publisher. 10 December 2008 .Web. 8 AUG 2013. Reporter without Borders
Freedom of Speech.Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. 1982. Web. 8 AUG 2013.

Mary Alex. Free Chinese housing rights activist, Ni Yulan. Amnesty International UK / Blogs. 11 Oct 2012. Web. 8 AUG 2013.
Obsessive controls to counter the specter of Arab Spring. Reporter without Borders. 12 MARCH 2012. Web. 8 AUG 2013.
2013 WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEX: DASHED HOPES AFTER SPRING. Reporter without Borders. Web. 8 AUG 2013=rank