by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Freedom of speech remains an oxymoron in China, with new restrictions on communications announced almost weekly. On Nov. 11, the Chinese government announced it was going to crack down on cell phone text messaging, ostensibly for controlling spam. Last year, measures were introduced to monitor cell phone text messages for potentially subversive tracts.

These are only some of the concerns press freedom group Reporters Without Borders-Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) have regarding China. Thursday, Nov. 17 has been designated the 16th annual Jailed Journalists’ Support Day, and, for the second year in a row, the Mirror is sponsoring Yang Zili, a cyber-dissident who was arrested by Chinese authorities on March 13, 2001. Yang ran a Web site calling for political and religious freedom and the improvement of the lot of the impoverished peasantry. On May 28, 2003, he was sentenced to eight years in prison, and his visitation rights have been severely curtailed.

In its annual report on China, RSF says that the country, which has at least 27 journalists languishing in prisons as of Jan. 1, 2005, is “the world’s largest prison for journalists.”

With the forced privatization of much of China’s media continuing apace, the report states that more than 600 publications have been shut down and journalists and editors are increasingly censoring themselves. They are encouraged to raise money through advertising, but must toe the Communist Party line or face harassment, closure or worse. Foreign broadcasts critical of the regime are scrambled, thanks to hardware provided by French corporation Thalès, and this summer authorities cracked down on illegal satellite dishes across the country.

As if journalists didn’t face enough restrictions in China already, RSF charges that the private sector is becoming increasingly complicit in muzzling dissidents. In September, RSF revealed that Internet provider Yahoo! handed over information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of journalist Shi Tao in April. Shi, a 37-year-old reporter for the daily Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Business News), was sentenced to 10 years in jail for “divulging state secrets abroad”—namely, an internal memo sent to his newspaper warning the journalists not to rock the boat following the release of several dissidents jailed since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

As Yahoo! expands its control of the market share in China, RSF has repeatedly sent its executives letters about the ethical concerns raised by cooperating closely with Chinese authorities to curb press freedoms. RSF reports that those letters have not been returned.

RSF condemned other tech giants for bending too easily to Beijing’s whims, including Microsoft, Cisco and Yahoo! search engine rival Google. The organization notes that both search engine companies are complying with requests to block access to sites that are potentially embarrassing to Chinese authorities.

While there will not be any official ceremony marking Jailed Journalists’ Day, RSF is publishing a photo album by French photographer Jean-Philippe Charbonnier with texts by 20 famous writers, including Bernard-Henri Lévy, Didier Daeninckx and Yves Simon. The book will be available in early December.

For more information on press freedom or lack thereof around the world, visit www.rsf.org.