Full Text: Progress in China's Human Rights in 2013

The Supreme People's Court issued the Several Opinions on Advancing the Building of Three Major Platforms of Judicial Openness and the Regulations for the People's Courts to Make Public the Judgment Documents on the Internet, so as to fully promote openness in trial procedures, judicial papers and adjudication enforcement, and to enhance public understanding of judicial decisions. The China Court's Live Trial website has been set up, on which people's courts at all levels have so far live-broadcast 45,000 court trials. The Jinan Intermediate People's Court live-telecast Bo Xilai's court trial through a microblog, which received extensive and positive attention. Internet information service websites of all kinds have greatly improved their service capability to ensure effective information acquisition by the public.

Chinese people enjoy extensive freedom of speech. Research and discussion in academic fields cover politics, society, culture and other aspects. Within the range allowed by the Constitution and other laws, the public can discuss political issues freely. Important government policies are widely discussed before and after being adopted, and opinions from all quarters can be fully expressed. The popularization and improvement of the Internet have dramatically expanded the space of freedom of speech. The public can express opinions through Internet forums, Netnews, blog/personal webpages, social networking websites, network literature, network videos, microblogs, IM and other Internet platforms. Netizens post an immense number of opinions all the time. According to statistics, Chinese netizens post and forward 250 million microblog messages and over 20 billion WeChat and other IM messages every day. According to the statistics about the texts posted by seven websites including Sina microblog and Tencent microblog, of the 20 top issues that received netizens' attention in 2013, the first 12 received over two million messages each, and the top one over 45 million messages. Netizens' attention, opinions and statements cover a wide range, including legal cases, the people's livelihood, individual rights and interests protection, patient-hospital disputes, and combating corruption.

Effective realization of freedom of speech ensures that the public oversee the government. People can present social problems through news media, the Internet and other channels, forward criticisms and proposals to governments at all levels and supervise the behavior of civil servants. Many local government websites in China have a municipal mayor's mailbox or county head's mailbox to receive letters from the public. The central discipline inspection and procuratorial organs, Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate have set up offence-reporting websites for the public. The public's proposals for and criticisms of government work receive high attention of governments at all levels, and have become important references for them to improve their work and decision-making.