Saturday, January 28, 2006

Censored Google Searches: Zheng Yichun

Zheng Yichun had been arrested on December 3, 2004 for “Subverting the State”, according to the official reason given. German Heise reports this was likely in connection with Zheng’s article in the Epoch Times, Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party (I posted on this last year).

A search for Zheng Yichun today on Google.cn is showing censored results. Some sites show, some don’t. Google agreed to the Chinese government’s request to censor the Epoch Times (around 2 million pages), as a search for epochtimes.com reveals. In the organic results on Google.com on the other hand, two articles by the Epoch Times are considered to be the most relevant articles of all in a search for Zheng Yichun.

In Google China’s image search, most photos of Zheng are missing, including all the ones showing on Google.com which have been published by the Epoch Times.

In a prophetic letter to his mother in 2003, Zheng wrote:

“Mother, should I be imprisoned, please don’t cry for me, please don’t be sad for me. I don’t want you to be sad; I don’t want you to cry. I think you should be proud of me, you will be proud of me, because your son didn’t do anything that makes him guilty before you and others. (...) Yes, I might become imprisoned, and maybe this will be my downfall. But please mother, remember the words of your son: my downfall will be a shining victory for the freedom of thought.”

Zheng Yichun has been sentenced to 7 years in prison. According to the Epoch Times, his family disclosed “that Zheng endured hardship whenever he was transferred to a new detention area.” Zheng is suffering from diabetes, the Epoch Times states in another article, but does not receive proper treatment in prison. Also, Zheng has been beaten in the prison by fellow prisoners, and was forced to do manual labor.

Censored Google Searches: ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (0)

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