In its latest attempt to tighten control over domestic media outlets, the Chinese government is requiring journalists to sign a secrecy agreement as a prerequisite for obtaining press credentials.

Authorities formally charged activist and freelance journalist Jiang Lijun with “inciting subversion of the state,” a charge that usually carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal published the story of Zhang Kun, an idealistic 26-year-old whose chance discovery of some Tiananmen Square Massacre footage led him to question his assumptions about his government and eventually brought him into the Chinese reform movement. Mr. Zhang became involved with the New Citizens Movement, an initiative aimed at facilitating China’s transition to a civil society. The organization was launched in 2010 by Xu Zhiyong, a civil liberties lawyer, and supported by venture capitalist Wang Gonguan. Shortly after the movement’s leaders were detained Mr.

In a blatant display of force following a string of terrorist attacks perpetrated by individuals belonging to China’s Uighur ethnic group, Chinese authorities held a mass trial in Xinjiang province at which 55 people were found guilty and sentenced on charges ranging from separatism to murder to terrorism. Three of the prisoners received the death sentence. The defendants were reportedly members of the Uighur ethnic minority group.

Ti-anna Wang continues to campaign for the release of her father Wang Bingzhang, a Chinese activist who has been imprisoned for the past twelve years for traveling to China in 1989 and 1998 to help establish democratic political parties. Wang, who has lived in Canada since the early 1980s, was abducted in 2002 while on a trip to Vietnam and subsequently brought to China to face charges of espionage and terrorism. After a one-day trial, a Chinese court sentenced Wang to life in prison.