July 2nd, 2007
Chinese protesters defy media control with text power
Get ready for the new grassroots organizing tool … the cellphone. In China, where traditional media is tightly controlled, activists are using text messaging to quickly generate protests against government activities, reports the Washington Post Foreign Service.
In June 2007, when a giant chemical factory was slated to be built in Haicang, an industrial and residential island across a narrow strait from downtown Xiamen, environmental activists were able to send messages across the Internet to draw thousands of protestors to the city.
“I think this is a great precedent for China,” said Zhong Xiaoyong, a Xiamen resident who as blogger Lian Yue wrote on the efforts to stop construction of the factory.
Local Public Security Bureau technicians tried to block the cellphone campaign, and many police showed up at the demonstration to control the crowd of about 8,000 to 10,000 people. The demonstrations were peaceful, except for pushing against policemen lined up to stop the march, witnesses said. During the demonstration, bloggers carrying cellphones sent text messages to other cities.
“The second police defense line has been dispersed,” Wen Yunchao, one such witness, typed to a friend in Guangzhou. “There is pushing and shoving. The police wall has broken down.”
In an interesting twist, newspaper and magazine journalists, afraid to cover the protests directly because of warnings from the Xiamen party Propaganda Department, logged on to follow the action.
“The Chinese government controls the traditional press, so the news circulated on the Internet and cellphones,” Wen, also a blogger, said later. “This showed that the Chinese people can send out their own news, and the authorities have no way to stop it entirely. This had so much impact. I think virtually every media worker in China was looking at it and keeping up with it.”
