China’s state media yesterday warned citizens to ignore calls for weekend anti-government rallies in major cities, saying that similar protests across the Middle East had created “chaos.”
The commentary in the Beijing Daily newspaper, a Communist Party mouthpiece, signaled that China’s security crackdown would not let up.
“This turmoil has brought a massive calamity to the people of these countries,” the Beijing Daily said in a commentary.
“It is worth noting that at home and abroad some people with ulterior motives are trying to draw this chaos into China. They have used the Internet to incite illegal gatherings,” it said.
This was the government’s most public warning yet against calls for Middle East-inspired pro-democracy protests that have spread from an overseas Chinese Web site, triggering tighter censorship, intense security in Beijing and new restrictions on foreign reporters.
Citizens have been urged to gather for subtle “strolling” demonstrations — but take no overt protest action — each Sunday afternoon at designated locations in cities across China to highlight public anger with the government.
Foreign reporters have been repeatedly warned to stay away from the sites this weekend and threatened with unspecified consequences if they disobey.
The anonymous campaigners behind the so-called “Jasmine rallies” have said their movement has support in dozens of cities, though security have turned out in force at the rally sites in Beijing and Shanghai to prevent such gatherings.
On Feb. 27, several foreign journalists were roughed up in a popular shopping area of Beijing, and police have since threatened reporters that they could lose their permission to work in China unless they follow new rules.
Chinese police have threatened to revoke the visas of dozens of foreign journalists if they continue “illegal” reporting from sites where overseas Web sites have called for anti-government demonstrations.
“Those people intent on concocting and finding Middle East-style news in China will find their plans come to nothing,” the Beijing Daily commentary said.
Chinese people, it said, support their nation’s political stability, economic development and favorable government policies.
The Beijing Daily urged citizens to “conscientiously protect harmony and stability” rather than allow a small group of people both at home and abroad to “exploit the problems existing in our development to provoke trouble.”
“Everyone knows that stability is a blessing and chaos is a calamity,” the newspaper said.
“The vast majority of the people are strongly dissatisfied [with the protests], so the performance by the minority becomes a self-delusional ruckus,” the newspaper said.
Police smothered any weekend protests before they had a chance of forming, and some foreign reporters who went to the scene of the would-be gathering on the Wangfujing shopping street in downtown Beijing were beaten up.
Beijing has mobilized 739,000 police officers, officials, security guards and residents recruited into local patrols to guard against mishaps during the annual parliamentary session, which opened yesterday, the official China News Service reported.
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