Who is affected by internet censorship?

Internet censorship affects everyone. Environmental activists, HIV lobbyists, human rights supporters, bloggers with opinions.

China's Government controls what journalists write and who they interview, what schools publish in textbooks, how many children you can have, what statistics you are allowed to know and what TV programs you can easily watch.

When all your channels of information are censored you can't be certain about what is really going on around you – in your neighbourhood, your city, your country, or the world.

The Chinese Government wants to silence dissent and opposition in the name of harmony and social stability.

Censorship is one tool used to suppress ethnic minorities like Tibetans, spiritual practices like Falun Gong, democracy supporters, lawyers who defend human rights, activists, human rights supporters and independent or foreign media.

Why are the Chinese authorities so restrictive of the Internet and the media? Because they know greater transparency would expose a huge range human rights abuses.

Media repression

Media outlets are regularly shut down and journalists beaten, tortured and jailed.

There are at least 30 journalists and 50 internet users known to be in jail in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists say China is the world's leading jailer of journalists.

Chinese journalists Shi Tao and Huang Jinqiu, pro-democracy activist and writer Yang Tongyan and dissident Wang Xiaoning are in prison right now because of what they emailed, wrote or posted on online.

Editors regularly receive a list of banned subjects, such as unofficial religions, judicial corruption, a workers' strike or the internal workings of the Government.

Print media also operate under a penalty points system – if they lose all their points they are closed down.

Media freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders say China blocks the BBC World Service and the Chinese, Tibetan and Uighur-language programs of 10 international radio stations.

Fighting for the right to know

When information is controlled, censored or blocked there is no transparency – so it's difficult to understand the full extent of the human rights abuses happening inside a country like China.

Many human rights abuses are concealed from the public through repression of the media and the Internet. Execution statistics are a state secret. Important news events go unreported. Historical events aren't taught in schools. People whose rights have been violated are frightened into silence.

Why it matters

Everyone has the right to express an opinion and to access information without fear that it will bring retribution, violence or death.

That's freedom of opinion and freedom of expression. And it doesn't matter whether you live in Australia or in China your rights are the same.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution states:

Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Human rights are not just ideas and concepts – they affect the lives of real people.

Case studies

To learn about who is affected by internet censorship check out our case studies.