Chinese authorities charged lawyer Tang Jingling with “inciting subversion of the state.” Tang has represented villagers fighting local corruption and land expropriation. He also founded a nonviolent civil disobedience organization in 2006. Following his detention last month, Tang was initially charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Charging Tang with the more serious charge of “inciting subversion of the state” indicates that authorities intend to issue a lengthy prison term.

On June 9th news broke that a 22-year-old sophomore at Beijing International Studies University named Zhao Huaxu had been arrested by Chinese authorities.

Authorities released artist Guo Jian and dissident writers Liu Di, Hu Shigen, and Xu Youyu following the passage of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Police detained Guo, a former soldier and later protester during the 1989 movement, in response to a work of art he created and displayed in his private studio depicting Tiananmen Square covered in raw minced pork.

In its annual report on global press freedom, Freedom House characterized China’s media censorship environment as “one of the world’s most restrictive.” China’s dismal rating stems from recent campaigns to crackdown on dissent through deleting politically sensitive comments on blogs and social media platforms, exerting tremendous editorial control over state-run media outlets, imposing harsh criminal penalties for spreading rumors online, intimidating and effectively depor

Ben Richardson, a former senior editor at Bloomberg News based in Hong Kong, recently resigned in protest of the news organization’s practice of censoring politically sensitive stories.