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BBC Chinese: China’s Internet Blocks Rumors of Jiang Zemin’s Death

An article in BBC Chinese reported that, “China’s Internet police have apparently blocked discussions about Jiang Zemin, the formal Party Secretary.” The BBC Chinese said, “On July 1, while many formal top party leaders including the formal Prime Minister Li Peng and Zhu Rongji appeared at the celebration ceremony of the Party’s 90th anniversary, Jiang, who is 84, was not present. This led to the rumor that Jiang was seriously ill or has passed away.”

According to BBC, on July 6, a BBC reporter logged on to the Sina website and typed “Jiang Zemin.” A message came back stating, “According to the related legal rules and policy, your search results cannot be displayed.” A list of Chinese words including “heart attack,” and “Party Secretary” were also blocked. Even the word “Yangtze” and other river related words were blocked because the Chinese characters contains the characters for “Jiang,”  the same name as the former Party Secretary. BBC said that several Hong Kong media sources from Beijing disclosed that Jiang suffered a massive heart attack and was hospitalized at the PLA 301 hospital where many top party leaders have paid visits.

Source: BBC Chinese, July 6, 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chinese_news/2011/07/110706_jiang_censor.shtml