“Those apps, which appear in most countries’ versions of the App Store, do not currently appear in the Chinese version,” Fletcher reports. “Another app related to Rebiya Kadeer, who like the Dalai Lama is an exiled minority leader reviled by China’s authorities, is unavailable in the China App Store as well. The apparent censorship comes after carrier China Unicom launched iPhone sales two months ago, making regulatory approval of the phone’s contents in the country necessary for the first time. ‘We continue to comply with local laws,’ Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said in an e-mail when asked about the missing apps. ‘Not all apps are available in every country.'”
“Chinese officials condemn the Dalai Lama as a dangerous ‘splittist’ seeking to separate Tibet from China, and have called him a ‘devil with a human face,'” Fletcher reports. “The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after Chinese troops crushed an uprising in the capital city of Lhasa, solidifying Chinese control there. The religious figure remains widely revered by Tibetans.”
“Apple joins other U.S. technology giants including Yahoo and Google that have come under fire for complying with Chinese government demands on sensitive political issues. Human rights advocates criticized Yahoo when Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, landed a 10-year prison sentence in 2005 partly because of e-mail evidence gained from his private Yahoo account. Yahoo said it was obeying Chinese law by handing the evidence to authorities,” Fletcher reports. “Google has been criticized for offering a censored version of its search engine for China at Google.cn, which blocks pornographic and some politically sensitive search results. Google has similarly said it must follow local laws and regulations.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]