The Fog of Censorship: Media Control in China is an expanded, English-language edition of He Qinglian’s 2004 groundbreaking study of China’s media censorship system, Media Control in China. It analyzes how media control in China is carried out through an elaborate architecture of pervasive Party supervision, a broad and vague state secrets system, stringent publishing and licensing mechanisms, control over key personnel, and the concentration of press groups under a handful of media organizations operating directly under the Party. He Qinglian also describes how new technologies, provided in part by Western companies, have strengthened Internet surveillance and censorship. He Qinglian (何清涟) is an economist from China and is the author of several books, including China’s Pitfall. She has been living in the United States since 2001.

This HRIC whitepaper analyzes the counterterrorism policies and practices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional group comprising six states with deeply troubling human rights records: China, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It argues that these policies and practices undermine the effectiveness and integrity of the international counterterrorism framework, and enable SCO member states to target their own populations through repressive measures that compromise internationally-recognized human rights.