Chinese govt nips Jasmine revolt in bud

On Beijing’s Wangfujing shopping street,about 100 people stood in front of a McDonald’s restaurant,slated to be the site of the protests,according to an Internet message that spread on Saturday.

China’s authoritarian government has appeared unnerved by recent protests in Egypt,Tunisia,Bahrain,Yemen,Algeria and Libya.

The call to protest in China did not seem to garner much traction among citizens. In Beijing,25-year-old Liu Xiaobai was stopped by the police after he placed a white jasmine flower on a planter in front of a McDonald’s restaurant and took some photos with his cell phone. “I’m quite scared because they took away my phone. I just put down some white flowers,what’s wrong with that?” Liu said. Security agents tried to take Liu,but he was swarmed by journalists.

Two other people were taken away by police. Potential protesters were far outnumbered by hundreds of rubberneckers at Wangfujing mall because of media presence. In Shanghai,three people were taken away by police. There were no reports of protests in other cities.

Ahead of protests,over 100 activists across China were taken away by police,confined to their homes or were missing,Hong Kong-based group Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said. Families reported detention or harassment of dissidents,and some activists said they were warned not to participate.

On the net
Boxun.com — where call for protests was first posted — said its website was attacked by hackers late Saturday.

On Sunday,searches for “jasmine” were blocked on China’s largest Twitter-like microblog,and status updates with the word on popular Chinese social networking site Renren.com were met with a warning to refrain from postings with “political,sensitive … content.”

Mass text messaging service was unavailable in Beijing due to “technical issues,” according to a customer service operator for leading provider China Mobile.