Outside the Beltway

From the “You Can’t Make this Stuff up File” (Chinese Constitution Day Edition)

Steven L. Taylor · Sunday, December 7, 2014 · 2 comments

Via Foreign Policy:  On First Annual Constitution Day, China’s Most Censored Word Was ‘Constitution’

On Dec. 4, China’s first annual Constitution Day, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Dailyposted the complete text of the Chineseconstitution to its Weibo microblogging account, accompanied by the upbeathashtag: “Let’s all read the Constitution!” The easy-to-read attachment included each constitutional article — including Article 35, which guarantees the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and demonstration to Chinese citizens.

[…]

On Dec. 3 and 4, the word “constitution” became the most highly censored term on Weibo,according to Weiboscope, a project of the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre that monitors online censorship in China; and on Dec. 4, “constitutionalism” joined the list of most-censored words.

h/t:  Chris Lawrence on FB.