Chronicling Free Speech With Mainland Chinese Characteristics
Bo Xilai Found Guilty of Corruption - A Chronicle of Censorship of the Case
The following is a timeline of the events and censorship leading up to Bo Xilai's conviction.
Wang Lijun (王立军), then police chief of the city of Jinzhou in northeast China's Liaoning Province, first meets Bogu Kailai (薄谷开来), wife of Bo Xilai (薄熙来).
April: While Wang was serving as the chief of Chongqing's Public Security Bureau, one of Wang's immediate family members was transferred to a working position in Beijing. Not having a residence in Beijing, Wang's relative received two apartments in Beijing bought by Xu Ming (徐明), board chairman of the Dalian Shide Group Co. Ltd. (大连实德集团有限公司) at a price of 2.85 million yuan (449,583 U.S. dollars). The apartments were registered under the name of Wang's father-in-law. After the deal, Wang gave his thanks to Xu in person.
May: The state-sponsored Hualong website publishes a report entitled "42 National Internet Media CEOs Sign 'Hongyan Declaration' In Chongqing" (全国42家网络媒体CEO重庆签署《红岩宣言》), stating that Beijing Internet media had convened a "Seventh Beijing Internet Media Red Native Land - Chongqing Circuit" (第七届北京网络媒体红色故土-重庆行"). The report went on to say that during a "Conference on New Media and Red Culture" (新媒体与红色文化传承研讨会) held during the event, 42 national Internet media outlets including Sina, Netease, and Baidu, signed a "media declaration" entitled "Succeed the Hongyan Spirit, Inherit the Red Culture" (继承红岩精神 传承红色文化).
In a report entitled "The Internet Can Feel the Pulse of the People, Chongqing Welcomes Objective and Constructive Criticism" (网络可以感受民意脉动 重庆欢迎客观善意批评), the state-sponsored Chongqing Business Post quoted Bo Xilai as telling the assembled Internet executives:
The "Hongyan Declaration" that you have issued is very good. Media, including Internet media, have an important function, which is to daily mold the spiritual world of China's citizens. China has 400 million Internet users, and many are young people, and they are full of vitality and vigor. They are the future of the motherland, and it is the duty of the media to create healthy information platforms for them, and provide them guidance through their services. Comrades involved in the Internet, who hold to their bosom the revitalization of the great resurgence of the Chinese people, can in the course of their work not only make greater contributions, but also feel joy in their hearts and the value of human life.
你们发表的《红岩宣言》很好。包括网络在内的媒体,有个重要功能,就是每天都在塑造国民的精神世界。中国有4亿网民,很多是年轻人,他们朝气蓬勃,充满活力,是祖国的未来,为他们营造一个积极健康的信息平台,在服务中实现引导,是媒体的使命。搞网络的同志,胸有中华民族伟大复兴的神圣事业,在工作中,不仅可以做出更大贡献,也会感到内心的幸福和人生的价值。
January: Baidu is censoring search results for "Bo Xilai," and has banned users from setting up PostBar (Tieba 贴吧) forums on Bo Xilai.
August 12: Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜 - son of Gu Kailai and Bo Xilai) tries to meet with Wang, but Wang refuses.
November 12: After a discussion with Bogu Kailai, Wang arranges surveillance and control efforts targeted at Neil Heywood under the pretext that Heywood may have committed drug-related crimes. Gu Kailai asks Neil Heywood to come to Chongqing.
November 13: Heywood flies from Beijing to Chongqing and checks into the Lucky Holiday hotel (南山丽景度假酒店).
November 14: Bogu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun, then an employee of the general office of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and a family assistant for Bogu Kailai, poison Heywood at the Lucky Holiday Hotel in Chongqing.
November 15: After talking on the phone with Bogu Kailai, Wang is informed that she had met Heywood in the hotel and had a drink with him. Wang instructs Guo Weiguo, then deputy chief of the Chongqing's Public Security Bureau and a close friend of Bogu Kailai, to handle the case, but does not tell Guo or other policemen that he possesses clues and recorded evidence of Bogu Kailai's involvement. Heywood is found dead in a Chongqing hotel room. Chinese authorities rule that the cause of death is alcohol poisoning, and his body is cremated.
November 26: the Wall Street Journal publishes an article entitled "Children of the Revolution" stating: "One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Beijing, and the son of one of China's top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo." The leader was Bo Xilai, and his son was Bo Guagua.
The screenshots were taken on November 27 and November 30, respectively, and show that, while on November 27 Tencent's Weibo microblogging platform was returning over 7,000 results for a search for Bo Guagua's name, three days later the same search returned a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策,搜索结果未予显示。)
These screenshots show that Sina Weibo was also censoring searches for "Bo Guagua," and Baidu had banned users from setting up PostBar (Tieba 贴吧) forums on Bo Guagua.
January 28: Wang reports to Bo Xilai that Bogu Kailai was highly suspected in the murder of Neil Heywood.
January 29: Bo Xilai rebukes Wang and slaps him in the face. Wang subsequently asks Wang Zhi (王智), Wang Pengfei (王鹏飞), and Li Yang (李阳) to go to his office and rearrange the November 15, 2011 case file.
February 2: Wang Lijun's is removed from his position as chief of Chongqing's Public Security Bureau.
Around this time, three staff members working closely with Wang are put under illegal investigation.
February 6: Under the pretext of discussing business, Wang cancels his original work arrangements and enters the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu at 2:31 p.m.
February 7: Wang leaves the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu of his own volition at 11:35 p.m.
February 8: At 11:30 am, Xinhua publishes a report stating:
At 10:54 on the morning on the 8th, the Chongqing city government's press office used Xinhua's official Weibo to publish information saying "Based on information, Deputy Mayor Wang Lijun is, pursuant to agreement, currently undergoing convalescent therapy for long-term work overload, high levels of mental stress, and severe physical indisposition.
8日上午10点54分,重庆市政府新闻办通过新华网官方微博发布消息,称"据悉,王立军副市长因长期超负荷工作,精神高度紧张,身体严重不适,经同意,现正在接受休假式的治疗。"
These screenshots show that Sina Weibo was not censoring searches for Wang Lijun at 9:30 am on the morning of February 8, then an hour later it began censoring that term, then it stopped censoring the term again after the Xinhua announcement.
Below, the left-hand screenshot shows that at around 3 pm a search on Baidu for "Wang Lijun" was returning apparently uncensored results. The right-hand screenshot shows that, about an hour later, the same search on Baidu returned a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, some search results have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策,部分搜索结果未予显示。) Search results were restricted to about dozen websites operated by the central government and the Communist Party.
These screenshots, also taken on February 8, show that whereas a search in the morning for "Wang Lijun defects to American Consulate" (王立军叛逃美领馆) returned hundreds of results, the same search that evening returned no results, just a notice saying "Search results may not comply with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, and have not been displayed." (搜索结果可能不符合相关法律法规和政策,未予显示。).
February 10: Li Yinhe (李银河) posts what she claims to be an "Open Letter From Wang Lijun" dated February 3, 2012, on her Caijing Magazine blog. The letter begins:
By the time everyone reads this letter, I'll probably either be dead or detained. I want to take a moment to explain to the world why I did all of this. There is one basic explanation: I do not wish to see Bo Xilai, the greatest hypocrite in the Communist Party, be able to continue his act. If evil politicians like him rule the state, it will be the greatest catastrophe for people of China and the greatest misfortune for China's future.
当大家看到这封信的时候,我或许已不在人世或许已失去了自由。我想向全世界解释一下我做这一切的原因。归根结底是一条: 我不希望看到党内最大的伪君子薄熙来能再继续表演下去,如果这样的奸臣当道,这将是中国未来最大的不幸和民族的灾难。
These screenshots show Lin Yinhe's blog post as it appeared before and after it was deleted.
Below, the top-left screenshot was taken on February 11, and shows that on that day a search for "Wang Lijun Open Letter" (王立军 公开信) on Sina's Weibo returned over 1,700 results. The bottom left and right-hand screenshots were taken in the morning of February 12, and show that the same search on both Sina and Tencent Weibos was returning no results, just a notice saying that search results may be illegal and cannot be displayed.
On the morning of February 10, the author Han Han published a blog post entitled "Chongqing's Beautiful Drama" (重庆美剧 ). The left hand screenshot was taken on the morning of February 10, 2012 (Beijing time), and shows Han Han's blog post as it appeared a thttp://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0102e11n.html. The right hand screenshot was taken at 6 pm the same day, and shows the title remained, but all of the text had been deleted.
February 21: The screenshots show that at some time between 10 am and 9:30 pm on February 21, 2012, Baidu stopped returning search results for the phrase "Bo Xilai Tenders Resignation" (薄熙来 请辞) and instead returned a notice saying "Search results may not comply with local laws, regulations, and policies, and have not been displayed." (搜索结果可能不符合相关法律法规和政策,未予显示。)
March 15: Xinhua reports:
Zhang Dejiang has been appointed Party chief of Chongqing, replacing Bo Xilai, according to a decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced Thursday. Bo will no longer serve as secretary, standing committee member or member of the CPC Chongqing municipal committee.
The screenshots show Baidu search results for "Bo Xilai Removed" (薄熙来 被免职) taken ten hours apart on March 15. The left hand screenshot was taken around noon, and shows Baidu's results have no censorship notice and include results from various "Weibo" micro-blogging platforms. The right-hand screenshot was taken around 10 pm the same day, and shows that Baidu is no longer returning Weibo results, and is displaying a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, some search results have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策,部分搜索结果未予显示。)
These screenshots show that, while a search for "Bo Xilai" (薄熙来) on Sina's Weibo microblogging platform returned over 1.2 million search results on March 15, 2012, on March 17 the same search returns a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results for 'Bo Xilai' have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策,"薄熙来"搜索结果未予显示).
March 19: A document entitled "Report on the Investigation and Assessment of Wang Lijun's Personal Visit to the American Consulate in Chengdu" (王立军私自进入美国驻成都总领馆并滞留事件进行调查评估的通报) begins to circulate on the Internet.
Below, the left-hand screenshot was taken at around 2 pm, March 19, 2012, and shows that a search for "Report on the Investigation and Assessment of Wang Lijun's Personal Visit to the American Consulate in Chengdu" (王立军私自进入美国驻成都总领馆并滞留事件进行调查评估的通报) on Baidu returned over 360,000 results. The right-hand screenshot was taken around 6:30 pm the same day, and shows that Baidu now returns around 30,000 search results (although there are only three pages) and a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, some search results have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策,部分搜索结果未予显示。)
March 26: The British government asks the Chinese government to investigate Heywood's death.
These screenshots show several examples of how several websites in China began censoring information at that time.
March 31: The Economy and Nation Weekly publishes an article entitled "Dalian Shide's Missing Officer" (大连实德迷局) stating that on March 15, Xu Ming had been subjected to "controls by relevant government agencies" on suspicion of involvement in a "economic case."
These screenshots show that on April 4, Sina's and Tencent's weibo microblogging platforms were censoring searches for "Xu Ming" (徐明).
April 10: Bo Xilai is suspended from his Politburo and top Communist Party posts. Government announces Gu Kailai is being investigated for Heywood's death.
These screenshots show that a search for "Wang Lijun" (王立军) on Baidu at around 4 pm on April 10, 2012 returned results from foreign web sites like Wikipedia and Yahoo.com. The same search done at 10 pm the same day now includes a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, a portion of search results have not been displayed." (根据相关法律法规和政策,部分搜索结果未予显示。), and the foreign web sites are gone.
The screenshots show that when a user did a search for "Gu Kailai" (谷开来) on April 9, Baidu's first page of search results included results from Wikipedia and Hudong. At some point between April 9, and April 10, Baidu began limiting search results for "Gu Kailai" (谷开来) to a white list of about a dozen websites controlled by the central government and the Communist Party, as well as Baidu's own Baike.
These screenshots show that at some point between 11 pm on April 10, 2012 and 8 am on April 11, 2012, Baidu began limiting search results for "Bo Guagua" (薄瓜瓜) to a white list of about a dozen websites controlled by the central government and the Communist Party, as well as Baidu's own Baike.
As these screenshots from April 11 show, Sina Weibo was also censoring searches for terms related to the case, including "Bo Xilai," "BXL," "Gu Kailai," "Bo Guagua," "Heywood," and "Wang Lijun." (王立军)
These screenshots show that the following day Sogou began censoring searches for "Zhang Xiaojun" (张晓军). On April 12, searches on Sogou returned over 180,000 results from websites including Hexun, Sohu, and QQ. By April 13, however, Sogou was returning around 2,000 results, all of them from about dozen websites controlled by the central government and the Communist Party.
These screenshots show that, shortly after China's state run media began publicly discussing the Heywood case, Baidu stopped completely censoring searches for "Heywood," and instead began restricting search results to its strict white list.
April 25: Bo Guagua writes an open letter to his school paper, the Harvard Crimson, saying his education has been funded by scholarships and his mother's earnings as a lawyer. He says he has no comment to make about the investigation.
May 17: The New York Times reports that Patrick Henri Devillers has been implicated in the business affairs of Gu Kailai.
This screenshot shows that a search for "Devillers" (多维尔) on Sina Weibo on May 17 returned no results, just a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, search results for "Devillers" have not been displayed" (根据相关法律法规和政策,"多维尔"搜索结果未予显示).
June 17: Cambodia detains French architect Patrick Devillers.
June 22: Cambodia's Foreign Ministry said the country had no plans to extradite Patrick Devillers to China.
These screenshots, taken on June 22, show that, while a search for "Devillers" (多维尔) on Baidu returns (apparently) uncensored search results, searching for "Devillers extradition" (多维尔 引渡) results in a notice saying "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, some search results have not been displayed" (根据相关法律法规和政策,部分搜索结果未予显示), and the results that Baidu has provided were restricted to about a dozen websites controlled by the central government and the Communist Party.
These screenshots, taken on July 7, 2012, show that for searches for Bo Xilai, Bo Guagua, and Gu Kailai, Baidu claims to have found 765k, 12k, and 8.4k results, respectively. In each case, however, Baidu only returned only one result - its own Baidu Baike article.
These screenshots were taken on July 15, and show that by now Baidu has reverted to its prior censorship of Bo Xilai, Gu Kailai, and Bo Guagua, with the former being on the broad white list and the latter two on the strict white list.
July 17: Patrick Devillers flies to Beijing.
July 22: Wang is formally arrested by the State Security Bureau of Chengdu for defection after the Chengdu Municipal People's Procuratorate approves the arrest.
July 26: Gu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun are charged with Heywood's murder by the People's Procuratorate in Hefei, Anhui province.
August 2: After the investigation is completed, the case is handed over to the Chengdu Municipal People's Procuratorate for examination before prosecution.
August 7: Bo Guagua sends an email to CNN saying: "As I was cited as a motivating factor for the crimes accused of my mother, I have already submitted my witness statement."
August 9: Gu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun are tried in Heifei.
These screenshots show that Sina Weibo was censoring "Hefei Court" and "Body Stand In."
August 20: A court in Hefei, Anhui, finds Gu Kailai guilty of murdering Neil Heywood and gave her a suspended death sentence. It also found Zhang Xiaojun guilty and sentenced him to nine years imprisonment.
These screenshots show that, shortly afterwards, Sina Weibo stopped censoring "Gu Kailai."
September 24: The Chengdu Intermediate People's Court finds Wang guilty of bribe-taking (受贿 - 9 years), abuse of power (滥用职权 - two years), defecting (叛逃 - 2 years), and "bending the law for selfish ends," (徇私枉法 - 7 years) and sentences him to a term of 15 years imprisonment.
September 28: Xinhua reports that the Political Bureau of the Communist Party Central Committee had decided that Bo Xilai would be expelled from the Communist Party of China and removed from public office.
September 29: Xinhua reports that the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Municipal People's Congress had decided to remove Bo from his post as deputy to the 11th National People's Congress.
These screenshots show that Tencent Weibo stopped censoring searches for "Wang Lijun" within hours of the court announcing the verdict. Sina Weibo also stopped censoring searches for Wang's name at about the same time as the verdict was announced.
July 25: Xinhua publishes an article entitled "Bo Xilai Indicted for Bribery, Corruption and Power Abuse."
These screenshots show that on July 24, both Sina and Tencent were censoring searches for "Bo Xilai" (薄熙来) on their Weibo products, and that on July 25 both companies stopped censoring searches for that term.
August 22: China's official news service Xinhua published an article entitled "Bo Xilai Stands Trial for Bribery, Embezzlement, Abuse of Power." An excerpt:
Bo Xilai, former Communist Party of China chief of Chongqing Municipality, stood open trial Thursday on charges of taking bribes, embezzlement and abuse of power at the Jinan Intermediate People's Court in east China's Shandong Province.
The trial started at 8:43 a.m. The official microblog account of the court will update the trial proceedings.
September 19: Portions of a letter written by Bo to family members while in prison begins circulating on the Internet.
These screenshots show that Tencent Weibo was censoring searches for "Bo Xilai Prison Letter to Family" (薄熙来狱中家书), and Sina Weibo was deleting posts referencing the letter.
September 21: At 11:24 am Xinhua published an article entitled "Bo Xilai Sentenced to Life in Prison for Bribery, Embezzlement, Power Abuse." According to that report:
Bo Xilai, former secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a former member of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Sunday for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.
He was deprived of political rights for life.
These screenshots show that on September 21 Sina Weibo was censoring searches for "Cherish the Memory of Bo Xilai" (怀念 薄熙来), "Support Bo Xilai" (拥护 薄熙来), and "Chongqing Model" (重庆模式).
Several of China's major search engines were also censoring searches for ""Chongqing Model" (重庆模式).
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