The Transparent Chinese

By MURONG XUECUN
Murong Xuecun, the pen name of Hao Qun, is the author of “Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu.” This article was adapted from a speech delivered in New York on Nov. 14 at a symposium on surveillance, co-sponsored by PEN America.

BEIJING — About once a month, Hao Jian is politely asked by the police “to have a cup of tea.” 

He knows it wouldn’t be prudent to say, “No thank you.”
A government critic and professor at the Beijing Film Academy, Mr. Hao signed Charter 08, a 2008 manifesto modeled on Charter 77, the 1977 document that helped usher in the end of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia. 

He has participated in forums about democracy and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, where his cousin died from a bullet wound.
The police tap his phone, read his email and follow him. 

On special occasions, like for several months after Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, the government forbids him to leave China. 

“To me, your life is totally transparent,” a police officer told Mr. Hao during one of his recent chats.
Among my acquaintances and friends like Hao Jian, dozens are compelled to lead transparent lives. 

And in addition to government critics, the authorities watch organizers of church services held in private homes, Falun Gong practitioners and simple petitioners. 

No one knows how many people are under surveillance. 

We can’t even be sure which agency oversees that daunting task.
The Edward J. Snowden affair finally raised a chilling question for the whole world: How much privacy do citizens have to give up for the sake of public security? 

For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security?
China is blanketed with surveillance cameras. 

They have been installed on most streets, in supermarkets and in classrooms. 

The official purpose of this growing network — known as Skynet — is often described as “law-and-order management.” 

But high-profile crimes — like the murder of an infant in a stolen car in Jilin Province earlier this year — suggest that the cameras have little to do with fighting crime: The costly camera network was criticized by the public for failing to find a suspect in that case.
By contrast, the surveillance system worked perfectly when targeting Li Tiantian, a Shanghai-based human rights lawyer. 

According to Ms. Li, security officials tried to show her boyfriend video footage of her walking into a hotel with other men, suggesting she was unfaithful. (He refused to watch it.)
The main purpose of the surveillance, of course, is control and intimidation. 

For almost a decade, “weiwen,” or “maintaining social stability,” has been the government’s public mantra, but this pursuit is simply a way to justify the Communist Party’s hold on power. 

“Stability” has been deemed more important than education, health care and even national defense. 

In the 2012 government budget, expenses for domestic security exceeded $111 billion, compared with a defense budget of $106 billion.
Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing who is in prison for seeking refuge in a U.S. Consulate in 2012, among other crimes, gave a glimpse of how the surveillance power is abused. 

He boasted in 2010 that his city’s surveillance system had identified 4,000 “unwelcome” people who had entered Chongqing around the time of Chinese New Year. 

Most of them were found and forced to leave the city within hours.
Yet most Chinese citizens seem unconcerned about living transparent lives. 

Even on social media, the most open opinion platform in China, few people question the legality and necessity of the extensive surveillance network. 

A survey conducted in 2012 among students in Central China Normal University showed that only about 55 percent of them were opposed to the installation of cameras in dormitories.
As an outspoken writer, I have become paranoid. 

I often suspect that I am being followed and videotaped, but I have no way of proving it. 

I occasionally turn around to see if the police are nearby. 

When I sit down at a café with friends, I often cannot help checking under the table for a listening device.
My internal battle to fight off the constant fear of not knowing what could happen to me at the hands of the government affects my judgment. 

I don’t know if this has affected my writing. 

Intuition tells me it hasn’t, but I have trouble trusting my intuition. 

It is the breakdown of trust — trust of oneself, trust of others — that is the worst consequence of living a transparent life.
At a party a few months ago, I witnessed one friend accusing another of being an agent for the Communist Party. It was not an isolated incident. 

I cannot avoid the thought that among my acquaintances someone is spying on me. 

I tell myself to be sincere with everyone, but my sincerity is frequently mixed with caution.
People under surveillance often cannot help look for ulterior motives behind ordinary social interactions. 

We are cautious when interacting with strangers. 

If a conversation with a stranger is inevitable, we tend to avoid speaking our minds. 

We fear whatever we say may be used against us. 

A friend recently told me that he has not made a single good friend in the past few years because it is difficult for him to trust people.
The Chinese government talks about building a “harmonious society.” 

But how can a society become truly harmonious if surveillance cameras are everywhere and everyone has to live with suspicion and fear? 

What kind of lives can we lead without trust?

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Chinese Police Fire on Unarmed Tibetan Protesters in Driru

RFA

A map of Driru county in Nagchu (Naqu) prefecture in Tibet.
Chinese security forces shot and wounded at least 60 Tibetans as they fired into a crowd demanding the release of a villager who had led protests against orders to fly the Chinese flag from their homes, according to sources Monday.
The incident Sunday in the Tibet Autonomous Region’s Driru (in Chinese, Biru) county of Nagchu (Naqu) prefecture was sparked when a crowd gathered to confront police attempting to search the home of Dorje Draktsel, who was detained last week after taking part in local protests, the sources said.
At least 60 were wounded when the Chinese troops opened fire, with many of those hurt suffering gunshots to their hands and legs and others knocked unconscious when police fired tear gas into the crowd, they said.
Many of the injured have still not received medical care, according to the sources.

Tagged as a leader
Draktsel, a resident of the township’s Yangthang village, had been tagged by authorities as one of the leaders of the protest by Driru-area Tibetans resisting orders to fly the Chinese flag from their homes.
“He had escaped from Dathang township and was going to Driru town when he was taken into custody,” a Tibetan living in exile Tashi Dondrub told RFA’s Tibetan Service, citing contacts in the region.
After Draktsel was detained, “[Chinese] armed police went to search his home, and when the villagers protested, more armed police arrived and fired into the crowd,” Dondrub said.
At least two of the protesters were critically wounded.
One of them, Tashi Gyaltsen, was sent to a hospital in the regional capital Lhasa, a local source in Driru said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“An elderly woman was also hit by gunfire and is now in critical condition,” an India-based exile source named Tenzin told RFA’s Mandarin Service on Monday, also citing sources in the area.
“Other Tibetans suffered gunshots to their hands or legs, and many were knocked unconscious when police fired tear gas into the crowd,” Tenzin said.

Brutally beaten
Another protester—Tsering Gyaltsen, 25—was earlier detained and brutally beaten after being identified as a ringleader of last week’s protest against forced displays of loyalty to the Chinese state, Tenzin said.
“He was rushed to a hospital in Lhasa on Oct. 5,” he said, adding, “Now his condition is very worrisome, but doctors refuse to provide details.”
Because of “extremely strict” controls on information channels, it is impossible to obtain photos of those wounded in Sunday’s shooting, Tenzin said.
“Chinese authorities have dispatched more than 200 paramilitary and police vehicles to villages [in Driru], setting up checkpoints on all the major roads,” he said.
“They have confiscated Tibetans’ cell phones and blocked communications by phone and the Internet. Now people have to bring their ID cards even when they go out to shop, and police are taking away all Tibetans who cannot show their ID.”
Driru-area Tibetans now living in Lhasa have been forbidden to return to their hometowns, a local source added.
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.
A total of 122 Tibetans have also set themselves ablaze in self-immolation protests calling for Tibetan freedom, with another six Tibetans setting fire to themselves in India and Nepal.

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Uighurs in China Say Bias Is Growing

By ANDREW JACOBS

KASHGAR, China — Job seekers looking for opportunities in this ancient oasis town in China’s far western Xinjiang region would seem to have ample options, based on a quick glance at a local help-wanted Web site. 

The Kashgar Cultural Center has an opening for an experienced dance choreographer, the prefectural Communist Party office is hiring a driver and nearby Shule County needs an archivist.

But these and dozens of other job openings share one caveat: ethnic Uighurs, the Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who make up nearly 90 percent of Kashgar’s population, need not apply. 

Roughly half of the 161 positions advertised on the Civil Servant Examination Information Web site indicate that only ethnic Han Chinese or native Mandarin speakers will be considered.
Such discrimination, common across the region, is one of the many indignities China’s 10 million Uighurs face in a society that increasingly casts them as untrustworthy and prone to religious extremism. 

Uighurs are largely frozen out of the region’s booming gas and oil industry, airport jobs are mostly reserved for Han applicants, and truck drivers whose national identity cards list their ethnicity as Uighur cannot obtain the licenses required to haul fuel, an unwritten rule based on the fear that oil and gas tankers could easily be turned into weapons, according to several trucking companies.
Despite its name — the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — this strategically pivotal expanse of desert and snow-draped mountains that borders several Central Asian nations is tightly controlled by Beijing. 

Top government positions as well as critical spots in the sprawling security apparatus are dominated by Han Chinese, many of them recruited from the eastern half of the country.

Ethnic Uighurs at a livestock market in Kashgar, China. They are the largest group in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, but Beijing maintains tight control.

At a tailor’s shop in the old city section of Kashgar, mannequins’ eyes are covered by paper, in deference to Islamic strictures on representing women.

Uighur women at a Sunday bazaar in Kashgar, China. Amid rapid development, Muslims have held on to their traditions.
“The bottom line is that the Chinese don’t trust us, and that is having a corrosive impact on life in Xinjiang,” said Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur economist in Beijing. 

“And the way things are going, it’s going to get worse.”
After a summer of violence that claimed at least 100 lives, analysts, human rights advocates and even a handful of Chinese academics are raising alarms over what they call repressive policies that are fueling increased alienation and radicalization among Uighurs, many of whom subscribe to a moderate brand of Sunni Islam. 

These policies have been tightened since ethnic rioting four years ago left at least 200 people dead in Urumqi, the regional capital.
The Chinese government blames outside agitators, among them members of a separatist movement it contends has links to global jihadists, for much of the unrest. 

While there have been a number of unprovoked attacks on Chinese police officers or soldiers in recent years, most experts say the threat from Islamic militants is far less potent and organized than that portrayed by Beijing.
In August, paramilitary police officers not far from Kashgar shot at least 32 men, killing a dozen, during a raid on what was described as a secret “munitions center”; a few days later at least a dozen other Uighurs were killed as they prayed at a farmhouse in Yilkiqi township, according to Radio Free Asia. 

The authorities said the men were taking part in “illegal religious activities” and training for a terrorist attack, but did not provide further details.
Other episodes include a shooting outside a police station in Aksu Prefecture that wounded 50 and left three dead, and a violent skirmish in Hotan, another Silk Road outpost, during which dozens of men were reportedly shot while protesting the detention of a local imam. 

The Chinese state news media described these and other episodes as “terror attacks”; exile groups say they were peaceful demonstrations crushed with brute force.
Local residents say these and other clashes have been fueled by the dispiriting realities of daily life here: the institutionalized job discrimination, the restrictions that prohibit those under 18 from entering mosques and the difficulty that many Uighurs face in obtaining passports. 

Those Uighurs lucky enough to travel abroad say they are often interrogated upon their return by security officials who demand to know whether they have engaged in separatist activities.
“The government should realize that reckless and inappropriate decisions by local authorities are only causing more instability,” said Yang Shu, a professor of Central Asian studies at Lanzhou University, referring to rules that discourage women from wearing head scarves and young men from growing beards.
Many Uighurs are also convinced that Beijing is seeking to wipe out their language and culture through assimilation and education policies that favor Mandarin over Uighur in schools and government jobs. 

Since 2004, a so-called bilingual education initiative has required teachers in much of the region to use Mandarin for nearly every subject. 

The authorities insist that the policy is aimed at helping Uighurs compete in a country where Mandarin is the lingua franca, but many parents, teachers and Uighur intellectuals are unconvinced.
“My 17-year-old daughter speaks decent Chinese, but she cannot get through a piece of Uighur literature,” said a government employee in Urumqi, who asked to remain anonymous because such criticism can have serious consequences. 

“A generation from now, I fear our people will be functionally illiterate in Uighur.”
Fear and mistrust between the two ethnicities has hardened in recent years as a growing number of Han Chinese migrants settle into heavily guarded enclaves, especially in the southern crescent of Xinjiang that remains predominantly Uighur. 

Even in Urumqi, where ethnic Han Chinese make up 75 percent of the population, knots of heavily armed police officers in fatigues are positioned throughout Uighur neighborhoods; after dark, Uighur men are barred from the front seats of taxis, according to a local ordinance cast as an anticrime measure.
Huang Xiaolin, a Han engineer who was recently lured to Hotan from coastal Shandong Province with a generous salary and subsidized housing, said colleagues frequently warned him against entering the city’s Uighur quarter. 

“The local people here are uncivilized and prone to violence,” he said, standing near a propaganda banner that read, “The Han and the Uighur cannot live without one another.”
Beijing has coupled its “strike hard” security approach with turbocharged economic development, but even that has stoked resentment among Uighurs, who say the best jobs go to newly arrived Han. 

“The Chinese government is focused on a very outdated understanding of macroeconomic development, thinking that it will bring everyone up to the same level, but it’s clearly not working,” said Sean R. Roberts, a professor at George Washington University who studies development in the region.
Part of the backlash, experts and local residents say, has been prompted by increasingly intrusive restrictions on religion. 

Civil servants can be fired for joining Friday afternoon prayer services, and Uighur college students say they are often required to eat lunch in school cafeterias during the holy month of Ramadan, when observant Muslims fast. 

In cities across the region, signs warn people against public prayer, and video cameras are pointed at the doorways of local mosques. 

Residents also say the government maintains an extensive web of paid informers and monitors Internet traffic and cellphone conversations.
Such policies are born out of concern that the radical Islam that has destabilized neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan will take root in Xinjiang, a fear not entirely unfounded given the region’s proximity to lawless countries that have provided a haven for a kaleidoscope of jihadists from across the Muslim world, including some Uighurs.
But experts say the raids on unsanctioned religious schools and other restrictions have prompted even greater religiosity. 

“Five years ago, you would have been shocked to see a veiled woman in Urumqi, but not anymore,” said a Han academic at Xinjiang University who is critical of Beijing’s policies in the region. 

“For a lot of Uighurs, growing a beard and asking your wife to cover her head in public has become an act of defiance.”
Despite the growing death toll, analysts say China’s new leadership is unlikely to reconsider its hard-line policies any time soon. 

During a state visit to four Central Asia nations last month that sought to bolster Xinjiang’s role as the linchpin of a revitalized Silk Road, President Xi Jinping vowed to continue the battle against what he described as the “three forces” of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
By failing to consider the root causes of Uighur discontent, Beijing could unwittingly radicalize a generation of young people, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who is based in Hong Kong. “The entire Uighur ethnicity feels asphyxiated, having become suspect as sympathetic to extremism,” he said. “Xinjiang is trapped in a vicious circle of increased repression that only leads to more violence.”

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Beatings, detention, threats after Tibetans reject China’s ‘Mass Line’ policy in Diru

TCHRD

China’s domestic security forces including the armed police and the army have engaged in beatings, and detention of 40 Tibetans even as local government and party authorities used threats and intimidation tactics to enforce the so-called “mass-line” policy in Diru.

Touted by the Chinese government as a means to bring the party leadership closer to the needs and concerns of the masses, the reality is the policy is aimed at bringing every Tibetan under the direct surveillance of the party’s human and technological surveillance machinery.

On 28 September 2013, a serious confrontation lasting about three hours broke out between armed Chinese security forces and local Tibetans in Mowa Village in Diru County. 

It was caused due to the mandatory nature of China’s “Nine Must Haves” campaign which requires, among others, every Tibetan family to put the five-starred Chinese flags on their rooftops. 

Local Tibetans in Mowa had refused to fly Chinese flags on their rooftops, a space traditionally reserved for sacred prayer flags; instead they threw the flags into a nearby river to express their disapproval. 

Armed police and the military arrived later to rein in the Tibetans. 

This led to open confrontation between the two sides as Tibetans used sticks and stones to respond to the firing from Chinese security forces. 

TCHRD cannot immediately verify the claims that police had indeed shot into unarmed Tibetans.
The same day, as news of the crackdown in Mowa spread, about 40 Tibetans from neighbouring villages of Taklha, Baro, Neshod and Taring appealed to local authorities to refrain from using force on Tibetans. 

But they were beaten up and detained by the Public Security Bureau officers.
Local authorities in Diru County have announced punishment for Tibetans who refuse to comply with official diktats. 

Authorities have issued threats against Tibetan protesters that their children would be expelled from schools; their sick relatives will not receive medical care in hospitals; and they will not be allowed to harvest the coveted Yartsa Gunbu (caterpillar fungus) medicinal plant. 

Tibet remains one of the most impoverished regions with one the highest infant and maternal mortality rates. Educational and healthcare facilities are scarce with the handful of schools and hospitals owned and controlled by the Chinese government. 

In a nomadic area like Diru, where the number of former nomads is growing thanks to China’s nomad resettlement policy, an overwhelming majority of former nomads now rely on caterpillar fungus as a major source of income. 

Last year, authorities in Malho used the same intimidation tactic by threatening to cancel state aid to those villages where self-immolation protests occurred, a typical example of China’s collective punishment.
Since 10 September 2013, authorities have sent in more than 18,000 Chinese cadres to Diru to intensify the party’s ‘mass line’ policy. 

These cadres have been conducting ‘patriotic education’ campaigns among local Tibetans, demanding them to pledge their ‘love and gratitude’ for the party and the nation, and to put up the 5-star Chinese flags on their rooftops. 

The mass campaign to extract political compliance has added fuel to the fire, making the situation more volatile in Diru. 

The dumping of Chinese flags in Mowa was the logical culmination of the “Nine Must Haves” campaign.
On 28 September 2013, soon after the Mowa crackdown and detention of 40 Tibetans, more than 1000 Tibetans staged a 24-hour hunger strike in front of the County government office. 

The strikers called on the authorities to release the 40 Tibetans and to put a halt to the flag campaign.
That same evening, acting on direct orders from TAR deputy party secretary Wu Yingjie, and Party Committee member and Nagchu Prefecture Party Secretary Dothog, the 40 Tibetans were released. Sources said many of them have sustained serious injuries as they were beaten up with iron batons.
On the evening of 29 September 2013, protest erupted among 4,000 students of County Primary and Middle schools after news reached that the authorities had threatened to expel students whose parents had participated in protest against the government. 

The County Middle School has been closed indefinitely. 

In the County Primary School, only 60 students, all children of Chinese government employees, have stayed behind. 

The rest have left the school although some students have not returned to their homes.
On 2 October 2013, Tibetans in Diru County again defied the security forces by putting up human blockades along the major highways which have been occupied by the security forces since protest broke out in Mowa. Sources said local Tibetans view the recent campaign as ploy to destroy Tibetan identity. 

Many in Diru fear a return to the dark years of Cultural Revolution.
All villages in Diru have been brought under the control of the security forces. 

Restrictions on Mowa, Monchen and Taring villages are exceptionally severe. 

Six security checkpoints have been set up in Diru. 

Security forces run regular patrols in villages watching over each family. 

Since 28 September 2013, more security forces from Lhasa and Shigatse have been sent to Diru. 

Sources believe that many more unidentified Tibetans might have been detained although no information is available due to total blockade on all communication lines in Diru. 

On 4 October 2013, sources said mobile phones of many Tibetans were seized and photos of the recent unrest deleted. 

Some Tibetans complain that their phones have not been returned.
Last year the authorities failed to make Tibetans fly Chinese flags on their rooftops in Diru. 

This year, they have asked everyone to comply or face punishment. 

Diru County has continued to defy official orders. 

Moreover, four known Tibetans from Diru County have died of self-immolation protests since October 2012, making this part of eastern Tibet a thorn in the eyes of ‘stability maintenance’ officers.
Last month the Chinese authorities had sent in 60,000 cadres to be permanently stationed in 5459 villages and 1877 monastic institutions. 

These cadres will either work as village level party secretary or as ‘work team’ cadres running political education campaigns and espionage activities under another controversial campaign known as “The Six Ones”. 

The deputy director of TAR People’s Congress, Ma Bizi, said the campaign was “the largest and most extensive coverage” of TAR by grassroots cadres “since the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951.”
The “Nine Must Haves” campaign is now being implemented in villages and monastic institutions .

This is in addition to other mass monitoring and surveillance campaign being implemented under the guise of “stability maintenance” policy.
In May 2013, the TAR authorities announced the implementation of another campaign called the “Advanced Joint Household” under which all Tibetan families or households are divided into small units, each unit consisting of five to 10 households, making it easier for the authorities to monitor and control every member of the household. 

For instance, in Shetongmon (Ch: Xietongmon) County in Lhasa Prefecture, each unit comprises of 10 households: one household with party members, three rich households, three moderately rich households and three poor households. 

The presence of a household with party members is obviously aimed at ensuring stability inside the unit. 

This campaign is the basic level of the Grid Management system, with ‘joint household’ unit leaders or inspectors acting as the foot soldiers of the grid system. 

On 25 July 2013, the official Tibet Daily quoted Choedak, member of TAR Party Standing Committee and head of TAR United Front Work Department as saying that the ‘advanced joint household’ campaign is aimed at “fighting against the 14 Dalai Lama and other overseas Tibetans, and hostile foreign forces” in Tibetan areas. 

He said the campaign would stabilize the opinion and thoughts of the masses thus ensuring long term stability. “The Advanced Joint Household campaign should turn into a basic level of the Grid Management system.”
The campaign is being implemented under the joint leadership of five levels of administration: autonomous region, prefecture, county, township and village. 

Lhasa and Shigatse Prefectures are projected as models for successful implementation of the ‘joint household’ campaign. 

In Lhasa Prefecture, the authorities have set up 14304 ‘joint household’ units, covering 144263 families and 430185 people. In Shigatse Prefecture, there are 18929 units. 

The total number of units in TAR stands at 77000, covering 70000 households and about three million people. 

In 2010, the population of TAR, according to official census, was little over three million.
The campaign is ostensibly designed as a state-organised contest among citizens for periodic ‘advanced joint household member’ awards which carry cash prizes. 

For instance, in Sakya County in Shigatse Prefecture, cash prizes for each ‘advanced member’ ranges from 1000 to 3000 yuan. 

But refusal to join the campaign in the face of pressure from thousands of cadres is near impossible for many Tibetans. 

Chinese state media reported that the reward system would over a time inculcate a sense of voluntary initiative among Tibetans to dispense their ‘stability maintenance’ responsibilities under the campaign. Irrespective of the state media reports, the ‘mass line’ policy has all the makings of a police state. 

In Rinpo County in Shigatse, all unit inspectors have been given red armbands, helmets, whistles, flashlights, boots, ID cards.
Recently, Chinese state media reported that in each ‘joint household’ unit, unit inspectors are required to monitor and ‘educate’ a special group of people, such as youngsters, former political prisoners and others with political history. 

Each household should watch over activities of other households to fight challenges and create social stability, exhorted the state media reports.

In particular, each unit should prevent protests and petitioning by a large group of families against the state development projects especially during relocation programs.
Reporting on the successful implementation of the ‘joint household’ campaign in Lhasa, state media quoted local authorities as saying that the campaign played a major role in preventing any protests against the forced relocation program when renovation work began this year in the traditional Tibetan neighborhood in Lhasa city.

Many Tibetan shopkeepers and others who have lived there for generations were relocated to government-built houses in the outskirts of Lhasa city. 

The official Tibet Daily reported that unit inspectors in Lubuk neighborhood in Lhasa city pay extra attention on crowded places such as tea houses to collect information. 

The unit inspectors in Lhasa’s Kundeling Street maintain constant contact with guards manning “convenience police stations”. 

Whenever unit inspectors hear about suspicious information, they lose no time in relaying this information to “convenience police stations”. 

By July 2012, 676 permanent “convenience police-posts” had been set up in TAR. 

These are manned by police officers who are on duty around-the-clock.
Far from benefiting the Tibetans, the mass monitoring and surveillance campaigns seek to control all aspects of Tibetan life with raw, unrestrained state power. 

No distinction is drawn between individual freedom and so-called national security measures. 

It will be only a matter of time before China’s ‘mass line’ policy turns Tibet into a police state.

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China’s Crackdown Prompts Outrage Over Boy’s Arrest

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — In their widening campaign against online “rumormongers” and other putative purveyors of social disorder, Chinese authorities have netted influential rights activists, freelance anticorruption sleuths and even a billionaire entrepreneur who championed the rights of poor migrants. 

Many of those detained in recent weeks remain in police custody.
But the enforcers of Internet propriety, it seems, were not prepared for the online outrage stirred up by the arrest last week of a 16-year-old boy who had publicly questioned investigators over the mysterious death of a karaoke club manager in China’s northwest Gansu Province.
On Monday, the police in Zhangjiachuan Hui Autonomous County apparently bowed to public pressure and released Yang Zhong, a middle school student who was among the first people to be charged under new regulations that criminalize the spreading of online rumors with up to three years in jail. 

The authorities contend the boy had simply confessed to his crimes and served his punishment. 

Hours after his release, he posted online a photograph of himself flashing a victory sign. His shirt read, “Make the Change.”
Rights defenders and free-speech advocates have embraced his release as a small but significant victory against what many here see as a draconian campaign against dissent that has ensnared dozens of people over the past two months. 

Those arrested include Xu Zhiyong, a prominent lawyer who had called on officials to publicly disclose their financial assets, and Xue Manzi, a Chinese-American investor who often railed against injustice to his 12 million microblog followers.
Mr. Yang’s arrest last Tuesday drew sympathetic coverage in the news media, and more than 10,000 people posted supportive messages, although many were promptly deleted. 

Lawyers from Beijing offered to defend him.
“With the arrest of this kid, I think the public saw this rumor campaign for what it really is: a devious attempt to crush normal online expression,” said Zhou Ze, a lawyer in Beijing who sought to rally public support for Mr. Yang’s case through his own account on Sina Weibo, China’s most popular microblog service.
A wiry boy with a fondness for Apple smartphones, online games and the occasional furtive cigarette, Mr. Yang ran into trouble two weeks ago when he stepped into a local controversy involving the death of a man whose body was found in front of the Jewel Time International Karaoke club. 

The police ruled the death a suicide, but relatives claimed the man had been beaten up before being tossed from an upper floor of the building. 

The youth, who spoke to some of the victim’s relatives, questioned the official version of events and then posted a message noting that the club was owned by a local judicial official. 

“You don’t want the world to know what happened?” he wrote. 

“What are you afraid of? I am not afraid of you. I took pictures, arrest me. I dare you.”
Last Tuesday, the police did just that, grabbing him from school and later charging him with “disrupting social disorder” because the posts, they said, inspired protesters to block a local street, snarling traffic. 

The police also claimed he had stolen a motorbike when he was 15, although they say he escaped punishment because of his age. 

His father has said the allegations are untrue.
Wang Shihua, one of the lawyers who volunteered to represent Mr. Yang, said his detention was unlawful because his comments were not knowingly fabricated. 

“It’s all right to crack down on rumors, but if such initiatives are expanded without limits or regard to principle, they become unconstitutional,” he said Monday.
Many analysts say the current offensive against online rumors is the latest fusillade in the Communist Party’s battle against liberal ideas like democracy and human rights, and those it fears could shake its hold on power. Unlike previous attempts to rein in China’s freewheeling microblogs, now estimated to include 500 million registered users, officials have been going after relatively moderate rights advocates as well as some of the most popular voices on Weibo. 

“We’ve seen an across-the-board tightening,” said David Bandurski, a researcher at the China Media Project in Hong Kong.
If the authorities in Zhangjiachuan thought the arrest of young Mr. Yang would chill outside scrutiny, they have been sorely disappointed. 

In recent days, some of China’s most intrepid journalists have been taking a closer look at what ranks as one of the country’s poorest counties. 

Bloggers have publicized lavish spending on government buildings, including nearly $3 million spent on the county’s administrative headquarters, and the extravagant tastes of local civil servants, one of whom was photographed wearing the kind of luxury watch that has felled other officials.
Mr. Yang, who works in his family’s noodle shop, seems to have been emboldened by his ordeal.

Soon after his release, he posted comments thanking his supporters. 

Later in the day, he was to participate in a live online interview with Sina Weibo members. 

But the exchange mysteriously ended just moments later, and soon afterward, the boy’s microblog account disappeared, too.

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