Things Happened on Christmas Days in China

December 25, 2011

... 13,000 Chinese citizens, furious over repeated rip-offs by their village elite, sent their leaders fleeing to safety and repulsed efforts by the police to retake Wukan (NYTimes). 

December 25, 2010

Quian Yunhui, a popular village head leading petitions against government abuses of power, died after being crushed by the front wheel of a truck loaded with rocks in eastern Zhejiang. Rumors emerged stating that Qian was held on the ground by four men in security personnel uniforms while the truck was driven slowly over him.

December 25, 2009

Prominent dissent intellectual and activist Liu Xiaobo was sentence to 11 years in jail for 'Subversion of State Power.'

December 25, 2008

China Launches Christmas Crackdown On Christian Worship

The Year of Dragon: Crackdown Continues on Activists in China

NYTimes: The Chinese authorities have responded by drastically intensifying a crackdown on rights activists that dated from December 2008, when the writer and intellectual Liu Xiaobo was detained after helping write the Charter 08 democracy manifesto. Mr. Liu was convicted of subversion in December 2009, and in 2010, while serving an 11-year prison sentence, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Last March, a court in Sichuan Province sentenced another activist, Liu Xianbin, to 10 years in prison on subversion charges, and another prominent rights activist in Sichuan, Chen Wei, drew a nine-year subversion sentence in December. On Dec. 26, a Guizhou Province court sentenced Chen Xi to 10 years for subversion.

 

Further readings:  
Zhu Yufu was charged with subversion for writing a poem: "It's time, Chinese people! / The square belongs to everyone / the feet are yours / it's time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice."

No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Po…

by Xiaobo Liu, Perry Link

Exposing CPC Tyranny and Running to the Free World: My Statement on Leaving China by Yu Jie

It will enable readers in China and beyond as well as the international community to see the truth behind China’s economic growth—reckless autocracy, rampant corruption, deterioration of human rights, damage to the environment, moral decline—and that Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao are sinners of history whose sins cannot be forgiven.

The Great Firewall of China 伟大的中国防火墙

By 4Gentlemen

During the Qin Dynasty, Emperor Qinshihuang began building the Great Wall to keep northern nomads out of China. In the Internet age, China has invented the Great Firewall to block free thinking, to censor messages and images which criticize government policies and draw attention to violations of human rights, and to keep this activity from circulating in the blogosphere. While the ancient Great Wall of China is regarded as a wonder of human civilizations, the Great Firewall in cyberspace becomes the most sophisticated, extensive and notorious project preventing the world’s largest population from expressing themselves with contemporary technologies. How does this invisible wall impact the lives of people within China and beyond in the information era?

The Great Firewall of China is an augmented reality public art project. Built for smart phone mobile devices, the project seeks to make Internet repression visible by setting the Great Wall ablaze. The public can simply download and launch the project and aim their device’s cameras at the at Wall. The application uses geolocation software to superimpose flames at precise GPS coordinates along the Great Wall, enabling public to see the fire integrated into the physical location as if it existed in the real world.

Explore Great Firewall AR on Google Earth

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Related projects also on view at Distributed Collectives exhibition at Little Berlin Gallery, PA: