Daily commentary about China by TIME correspondents.

Twitter Blocked, QQ Assailed

As I wrote in a previous post, one of Beijing' more interesting reactions to the Iran protests was to single out Twitter for its role in the protests. Now, not surprisingly, Twitter has been blocked since yesterday afternoon, presumably in reaction to the Urumqi riots Sunday and their bloody suppression. Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government reportedly said in a televised address yesterday that the hugely popular IM service QQ as well as online forums had been used by outsiders to stir up the protests.(As we said in our story, comment on the internet is being heavily censored, tho as this nice AFP story lays out, Chinese netizens are stilling managing to get some views up.)

Meanwhile, few more details of what happened and how have emerged. For example, though Xinhua is reporting the numbers of men and women killed (129 and 27), there's still no indication of ethnicity, which would obviously give an indication of whether demonstrators/rioters (you choose) were shot by security forces. The delay leads me to wonder whether we will ever be told.

My colleague Austin is in Urumqi and will be reporting what he can later today.

  • Print
  • Comment
Comments (12)
Post a Comment »
  • 1

    As one of the members of the China-bashing clan of this forum claimed in Mr.Elegent's previous post on this riot, this is a war.
    Now, if this is a war, and the Chinese authority had found out that the Internet is being used by its enemy as a means of communication, it makes perfect sense for the authority to shut down the Internet and cut off the means of communication in order to defeat its enemy.
    Now, don't count on me on classfying this as a war.
    Memembers of the China-bashing clan claimed it.
    So, to respond to Mr.Elegent's usual out cry for freedom of speech via the Internet there is no such thing called freedom of speech when there is a war between the two sides.
    I suppose the US army won't be stupid enough to allow for the terrist groups to use the latest communication technologies to orchestrate the war against them.

  • 2

    Im Chinese,how came u do not know what happen in China??r u in the Beijing?? have u watch the TV? come on auther,why u cheat u people? actually,I don't know waht 's the twitier? i only use the QQ, but QQ is a IM messager.no one can blocke it,i can talk about everything with my friends.and by the way,when the Muslim doing the illegal is named terrorist,but the same situation in the China,it named protestor. how came? Im very upset with u, ur words,it is not u business.man,r u Chinese??if u r not,pls shut up!!!!!

  • 3

    The CCP will do its routine covering everything in a dark box, then release "authoritative and normative news(新闻通稿)" on "Xinhua(新华社)" blaming such "beating, smashing, looting and burning incident produced by the crowd who are ignorant of fact agitated by a small pinch of evildoers who are organized and orchestrated by the overseas hostile forces and western anti-China elements having ulterior motives (在别有用心的境外敌对势力和西方反华分子的组织策划下,不明真相的群众受一小撮坏分子的煽动,制造了这起打砸抢烧事件)".

  • 4

    If Simon and other foreign correspondents dare to say some words about it, they are “rudely intervening in the internal affairs of other nation(粗暴地干涉他国内政)” therefore severely hurting the feelings of the Chinese people(严重伤害了中国人民的感情). If this one is a overseas Chinese, he must be Hanjian-quisling(汉奸卖国贼)!

  • 5

    If Simon and other foreign correspondents dare to say some words about it, they are “rudely intervening in the internal affairs of other nation(粗暴地干涉他国内政)” therefore severely hurting the feelings of the Chinese people(严重伤害了中国人民的感情). If this one is an overseas Chinese, he must be Hanjian-quisling(汉奸卖国贼)!

  • 6

    I am quite sure the Uighurs are blocking the Internet because they don't want the world to know the crime they are committing. The Uighurs have something to hide behind the blocking and that's why Twitter and QQ are blocked.

    We must demand the Uighurs to open up the network so that people can see what is happening there.

  • 7

    See who will be dispatched to put out this fire

    Honour Roll (All waistcoats are arranged in random order):

    sing666
    2morrow2
    bylooker
    laohong
    jumpingflea
    martindemars
    bluescreen2008
    bookevil
    baronvonkissalot
    triciatakanawa
    Imagebilly
    refresh2009
    mel0809
    nanyangren
    morriscui
    jordancfan
    bibijaca
    johnsmear
    loveuchina
    eastbreeze
    hamertsuy

    (coming soon)

    ---the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee notifies

  • 8

    Where has the most ruffian five-jiao "laohong" hidden in?

  • 9

    the newest members, sing666, 2morrow2 and bylooker are actually double agents working in the CIA and MI6. They actually pay taxes to Her Majesty's Government. They pretend to be Chinese and act like barbarians so to incense all non-Chinese to hate the whole Chinese race.
    Austin, even though he is actually doing some dangerous reporting in Urumqi, is really just fabricating everything because he is non-han. He is hurting the Chinese people's feelings because they are a weak race and are easily hurt; they don't know how to stand up for themselves or even innocent others unless they are in a mob.
    Austin is writing false reports to get a good expat deal. The overseas fenqing, on the other hand, pay taxes to governments that fund these great expat deals. The conspiracy directed against the Chinese is too complex.

  • 10

    only Chinese can speak about Chinese. Non-Chinese will never know what goes on in their perverted minds. Obviously bylooker and sing666 must work harder to understand this puzzling race.

  • 11

    >there's still no indication of ethnicity, which would obviously give an indication of whether demonstrators/rioters (you choose) were shot by security forces.

    Little Simon, you if use "indication ", then you should not use the word "whether" in one sentence. Or...you might not want to say it in such an explicit way.

    there's an simple explanation for "no indication of ethnicity", because the govt. doesn't want to provoke ethnic hatred (from Hanzu's side) -- something you might just want to provoke.

  • 12

    "the newest members, sing666, 2morrow2 and bylooker are actually double agents working in the CIA and MI6."

    Come on. These fenqings with intelligence of a potato ? (with apologies to potatoes)

Add Your Comment:

You must be logged in to post a comment.
The China Blog Daily E-mail

Get e-mail updates from TIME's The China Blog in your inbox and never miss a day.

Quotes of the Day »

Get & Share
ROBB LEVIN, resident of Fairfax, Virginia, on the $15,000 lawsuit settlement made against Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the White House gate crashers, who are also involved in at least 15 other civil suits

Stay Connected with TIME.com