{"id":44888,"date":"2015-01-17T20:48:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T20:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=44888 "},"modified":"2015-01-17T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T20:48:00","slug":"44888-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=44888","title":{"rendered":"Chinese News Assistants React to Colleague\u2019s Arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>January 16, 2015 10:55 PM<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div>Asia Society&#8217;s Eric Fish talks to five current and former news assistants for foreign media in China about the recently reported detention of their counterpart at Die Zeit, Zhang Miao.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>What did you think when you read the report about Zhang Miao&#8217;s arrest?<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>News assistant #1: Imagine African gazelles watching their mates cross a crocodile-invested river that they themselves had waded across just a short while ago. Imagine their horror when they look back as one of their mates first flounces and wails, then gets drowned and devoured. [&#8230;]<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>News assistant #4: It sends a chill down my spine, of course. I compare Miao&#8217;s arrest to a terrorism strike, because it&#8217;s scary and meant to terrorize. I feel just like someone who witnessed the Boston marathon bombing &#8212; afraid at first, then outraged, then sad, then realize that if I panic, I lose. If you don&#8217;t panic, you see the big picture. We all know that the Party can grab anyone they want at any time. They&#8217;ve grabbed reporters, lawyers, students, accountants, scientists, teachers. Why not news assistants? [&#8230;]<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>[&#8230;] What is the general atmosphere for news assistants like these days compared to the past?<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>News assistant #4: The biggest impact since the new administration came to office is that there is no one left to call. Everyone we used to call up for a quote is in jail. The Party has long grabbed anyone with rebellious political views, and now it has finished grabbing the ones with modest views. Now it&#8217;s coming for anyone who speaks at all. No one wants to talk. It&#8217;s amazing how fast what little room we had to discuss public affairs just vanished. [Source]<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>The assistants also discuss Die Zeit&#8217;s failure to obtain proper accreditation for Zhang, which may have deepened her predicament. Read more perspectives on the case via CDT.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><a href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2015\/01\/chinese-news-assistants-react-colleagues-arrest\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chinadigitaltimes%2FbKzO+%28China+Digital+Times+%28CDT%29%29\">Continue reading the original article<\/a>.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;News assistant #1: Imagine African gazelles watching their mates cross a crocodile-invested river that they themselves had waded across just a short while ago. Imagine their horror when they look back as one of their mates first flounces and wails, then gets drowned and devoured. [&amp;#8230;]&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}