The Australian Embassy in Beijing revealed on August 31 the arrest without official cause of the famous economic news presenter, Cheng Lei , an Australian of Chinese origin working for the state audio-visual group China Global Television Network (CGTN). The Chinese authorities have since confirmed that the journalist has been placed, for more than two weeks already, under “residential surveillance in a designated place” (RSDL), a euphemism which refers to incommunicado detention in “black prisons” where the detainees are. deprived of their rights and at risk of being subjected to torture
Censors at the social media platform Weibo were meanwhile stepping up warnings to platform users that they could be pursued for comments deemed to be “attacks on government departments or state media agencies.”
China puts on the political show because “the harm from shutting down the factories has caused a worse impact on the ruling regime than that from the virus itself,” Yang added
President Tsai Ing-wen swept to a landslide victory in Taiwan’s presidential elections on Saturday after she vowed to defend the island’s way of life against threats, infiltration and saber-rattling by China
Social media posts showed a line of overturned police cars, while eyewitnesses said younger people had hit back at incoming police lines with projectiles. Dozens of people were beaten and detained before police regained control of the area, according to local media reports and eyewitness accounts
Veteran Beijing journalist Li Xinde said many “market-oriented” papers are meeting the same fate, while papers under direct party or government control are subsidize by a system of compulsory subscriptions