China intensifies propaganda against "street politics"

Mar 6, 2011, 11:27 GMT

Beijing - Intensifying propaganda against anonymous calls for peaceful anti-government rallies, Chinese state media and officials Sunday said the 'street politics' of recent protest movements in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya would not succeed in China.

A front-page commentary by the Beijing Youth Daily urged people to 'protect stability' against people inside and outside China who were 'using various means to incite street politics.'

'Through the internet they are creating and spreading false news, and inciting illegal gatherings, with the aim of bringing the chaos of the Middle East and North Africa to China,' the newspaper said of those calling for 'Jasmine rallies' in China.

The Beijing Daily carried a similar commentary on Saturday, while a Beijing municipal official promoted the same message at a press conference on Sunday.

The online inciters of protests were trying to 'play the so-called street politics,' the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wang Hui, director of the city's information office, as saying.

'But sober-minded people can see that they have chosen the wrong place. Such things will not happen in Beijing,' Wang said.

Scores of people gathered in Shanghai on Sunday at the site for weekly 'strolling' protests against the government, surrounded by hundreds of uniformed and plain clothes police.

The anonymous online organizers of the weekly 'Jasmine rallies,' which began on February 20, urged similar passive protests at dozens of other sites across China, including Beijing's busy Wangfujing and Xidan shopping streets, on Sunday.

There was no sign of open protest at either venue in Beijing, which intensified its heavy security before Saturday's opening of the National People's Congress, China's nominal parliament.

Police in Shanghai briefly detained at least 15 foreign journalists who were trying to report Sunday's protest, two of the journalists said.

Last Sunday, police in Shanghai and Beijing detained at least 16 journalists, including a dpa reporter, to prevent them from reporting anti-government protests in the two cities.

Wang said police were investigating the beating of a Bloomberg journalist last Sunday in Wangfujing.

'The municipal government pays great attention to this case, which we are unwilling to see,' she was quoted as saying.

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