Founder of Protest Reporting Outlet Goes Missing in China
by Oiwan Lam
Global Voices, June 23, 2016
https://globalvoices.org/2016/06/23/founder-of-protest-reporting-outlet-goes-missing-in-china/print/
[1]
Lu Yuyu, founder of citizen media outlet Not in the News, has been missing
since June 15, along with his girlfriend.
The citizen news outlet has been reporting and distributing news of mass
demonstrations in China via the Twitter account @
wickedonnaa
[2],
Blogspot
[3] and
YouTube
[4] since 2013.
The news team also keeps track of the scale and number of incidents, the
number of arrested demonstrators and the reason behind the demonstrations
through
its
monthly statistics report
[5]. It recorded 28,950 incidents in mainland China in 2015. The site
recorded 9,869 incidents in the first quarter of 2016.
The site collects videos and photos of grassroots demonstrations from online
sources and redistributes the news via various social media platforms.
Twitter
account @wickedonna is a major distribution spot and usually the account,
managed by Lu Yuyu (Darkmamu), has several daily updates.
Since June 14, the @wickedonna account has posted no new updates. Lu's
friend @youyuping alerted followers on June 20
-- Pepee--??? (@youyuping)
June 20, 2016
[6]
block quote
Urgently seeking missing person, @wickedonnaa, a highly sensitive news
outlet [founder] has gone missing.
block quote end
On Weibo, Lu's friend @ZGHQW99 is also looking for him
block quote
Lu Yuyu has been researching mass incidents across the country since 2011
and distributing the news on Sina Weibo and Twitter. He has been doing this
non-stop
for years so that netizens from China and overseas can see people's
suffering in China. Even [Party-affiliated] Hongqi's "Worker and Peasant"
column has
republished his writings. Last week, Lu went missing and out of contact.
Even his relative's mobile phone is unanswered. Please pay attention to
this.
block quote end
In an interview with @beidaijin published on Paopao.net in 2014, Lu
explained
[7] the mission of his work
block quote
To magnify the voices of the protesters and catch social attention. To
spread people's experience of struggle so that others can learn from their
successes
or failures.
block quote end
Lu began researching mass demonstrations and incidents in 2011 and began
actively distributing the news through social media in 2013, developing what
became
a counterweight to China's online censorship regime. As witness accounts of
protests are dispersed on social media and quickly deleted by web censors,
Lu sought through his work to give people greater access to information of
public interest and document a more complete picture of the incidents.
Lu Yuyu, the person behind @wickdonnaa which reports on Chinese mass
incidents has been missing since June 15. Photo from Twitter user @youyuping
[8]
He usually spends eight hours a day tracking protest news on social media,
cross-checking the information via different search engines, and verifying
that
videos and images are really coming from the protest spots. @hpgd0 praised
Lu's work on Twitter after he learned about his disappearance
block quote
"Not in the News" bares witness to so many sufferings for us. Putting such
serious effort into this work is an act of respect. I sometimes
intentionally
ignore the news, as it takes courage to look at others’ suffering. But I
notice that he keeps track of every incident, every day. These stories can
make
headline news in Japan, they are all loaded with social injustice. Society
is not perfect, but filtering out negative news will not make society
better.
block quote end
It is very likely that Lu and his girlfriend's disappearance is related to
his citizen journalistic work. Many
speculated that
[10] they have been detained because of recent
protests in the town of Wukan
[11], Shandong province, where protests have erupted over an ongoing land
dispute. Xing Jian, an exiled dissident told Radio Free Asia
block quote
As Wukan incident continued to gain public attention, the Chinese
authorities are worried about media reports on the protest. That's why they
made him vanish.
This is a further suppression of freedom of press. We urge international
society and human rights organizations to pay attention on this.
block quote end
content info landmark
Article printed from Global Voices httpsglobalvoices.org
URL to article
httpsglobalvoices.org20160623founder-of-protest-reporting-outlet-goes-missing-in-china
URLs in this post
[1] Image httpswickedonna.blogspot.com201606201668_10.html
[2] wickedonnaa httpstwitter.comwickedonnaa
[3] Blogspot httpsnewsworthknowingcn.blogspot.hk
[4] YouTube httpswww.youtube.comchannelUCVMOALB3Ur566lKOHrXJyDQ
[5] monthly statistics report
httpsnewsworthknowingcn.blogspot.hksearchlabel??
[6] June 20, 2016 httpstwitter.comyouyupingstatus744899715645399041
[7] explained httpspao-pao.netarticle244
[8] Image httpstwitter.comyouyupingstatus745227713724637184
[9] June 20, 2016 httpstwitter.comhpgd0status744928789969264641
[10] speculated that
httpwww.rfa.orgmandarinyataibaodaorenquanfazhiql1-06212016103919.html
[11] protests in the town of Wukan
httpwww.nytimes.com20160621worldasiachina-wukan-protest.html_r=0
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