The Countryside
A volunteer's shuttered blog: follow-upPosted by Joel Martinsen on Monday, May 24, 2010 at 11:54 AM
An article in today's English-language Global Times reports on the story of Eckart Loewe, an educator from Germany who has been volunteering in Guangxi for the past decade. Loewe (who goes by the name Lu Anke closed down his blog last week, leaving a final message that mentioned the "discomfort" his work with poor rural children had caused. The message included the following statement, which gave the impression that government criticism had prompted the shutdown: in China) abruptly
The Global Times article, titled "German teacher closes blog, denies govt pressure," blames the Hong Kong media for misleadingly reporting that Loewe had been threatened with deportation:
Although the Global Times article points out that Loewe posted his message "without referring to any official organ," (relevant departments is a familiar dodge), the newspaper is similarly imprecise when it refers to "local authorities." A reporter who had sought an interview with him in April wrote that Loewe had mentioned receiving a warning from the Guangxi Autonomous Region Public Security Department, not the most local of official organs. And on Saturday, the microblog of the magazine New Weekly reproduced an emailed reply to their request for an interview with Loewe:
Neither newspaper was able to obtain a response from the Public Security Department. Links and Sources
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