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(CNN) -- Crowds gathered at the headquarters of a Chinese newspaper on Monday, in support of a rare protest by journalists against alleged government censorship.

The journalists at the Southern Weekly paper, based in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, claim that an editorial calling for political reform was censored by and re-written as a tribute to Communist Party rule.

Photos published by the South China Morning Post and circulated on China's most popular microblogging site Sina Weibo showed dozens of people gathering outside the paper's headquarters, some holding posters calling for press freedom.

One journalist from Southern Media Group, which owns Southern Weekly, told CNN that colleagues joined the protest to express their outrage.

"We stand up now because we were pushed to the limit," the journalist, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

Some journalists have threatened to strike. If it goes ahead, it would be the first time an editorial staff of a major Chinese newspaper has openly staged a strike in more than two decades, the South China Morning Post reported.

The controversy emerged last week when a group of former Southern Weekly journalists said, in an open letter, that a local propaganda chief had dramatically altered the paper's traditional New Year message, according to a translation published by the China Media Project at Hong Kong University.

While newspapers in China are often subject to censorship, the journalists wrote in the letter that the changes were excessive, and took place after editors had signed off on the final proofs.

The letter also said that the official had introduced factual errors.

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Chinese journalists protest censorship

Amid government censorship and controls, are Internet service providers in China actually resisting the propaganda authorities?

China is famous not only for its cultural heritage and newfound economic power. While the country boasts of the biggest number of Internet and mobile users to date, the so-called Great Firewall of China is also enforced to filter and control the flow of information both within the countrys borders and across a practice that authorities say is meant to prevent illegal activities and to enforce its jurisdiction within geographic borders.

For instance, in recent news, we have learned that China is now enforcing a real-name requirement for any person accessing the Internet. Propaganda authorities are also quick to order the deletion of any Internet posting, censoring of keywords or banning of entire accounts altogether when the information is deemed sensitive or illegal. Both users and service providers usually have no recourse but to comply. Some enterprising individuals would usually resort to workarounds, which can include the use of VPNs, code-words, encryption, and the like.

Is Sina deliberately delaying its censorship?

But whats quite surprising at this point is that some service providers seem to be employing some delaying tactics in filtering or censoring content, giving time for the message to spread out before being removed from the source.

Global Voices Online has shared a translation of a purported leak from a Sina Weibo employee , which tries to explain the rationale behind the companys deletion of posts and accounts. According to the poster, this practice stems from the need to find a balance between providing a medium for users to voice out, while also complying with state regulations for content filtering.

We need [Sina] Weibo to deliver voices. But a hand is manipulating us. Someone is doomed to be sacrifice[d] in this game. We live in a country full of special and sensitive barriers and we have to operate within a set of rules.

Interestingly enough, the supposed employee suggests that Sina may be intentionally letting erring content slip out into a wider readership before it eventually pulls the plug.

You guys keep posting messages like machines You can see the messages before they are deleted, right? You still have your accountfunctioning, right? You are all experienced netizens, you know that the technology allows us to delete messages in a second. Please think carefully on this.

There is no confirmation at this point, as how genuine_Yu_Yang is actually connected with Sina. But whats clear at this point is that, indeed, information does get out to some extent, before being extinguished at the source. By then, the supposed damage would have been done. Content would have been re-tweeted or shared with tens of thousands of other users.

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Are Chinese internet service providers quietly resisting propaganda and censorship?

Beijing, Jan. 7 (AP): A dispute over censorship at a Chinese newspaper known for edgy reporting evolved today into a political challenge for China's new leadership as prominent scholars demanded a censor's dismissal and hundreds of protesters called for democratic reforms.

The scholars and protesters were acting in support of the Southern Weekly in its confrontation with a top censor after the publication was forced to change a New Year's editorial calling for political reform into a tribute praising the ruling Communist Party.

Rumours circulated that at least one of the newspaper's news departments was going on strike, but they could not be immediately confirmed.

Protesters, including middle school students and white-collar workers, gathered outside the offices of the newspaper in the southern city of Guangzhou to lay flowers at the gate, hold signs and shout slogans calling for freedom of speech, political reform, constitutional governance and democracy.

"I feel that the ordinary people must awaken," said one of the protesters, Yuan Fengchu, who was reached by phone. "The people are starting to realise that their rights have been taken away by the Communist Party and they are feeling that they are being constantly oppressed."

Political expression in the public sphere is often viewed as risky in China, where the authoritarian government frequently harasses and even jails dissidents for pro-democracy calls.

Another protester, Guangzhou writer and activist Wu Wei, who goes by the pen name Ye Du, said the protest marked a rare instance in which people were making overt calls for political freedom since large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed in a military crackdown in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

"In other cities, we've seen people march, but most of the time they are protesting environmental pollution or people's livelihood issues," Wu said. "Here they are asking for political rights, the right to protest. The Southern Weekly incident has provided an opportunity for citizens to voice their desires."

The protest came as 18 Chinese academics signed an open letter calling for the dismissal of Tuo Zhen, a provincial propaganda minister blamed for the censorship. The scholars included legal professors, liberal economists, historians and writers.

Peking University law professor He Weifang, who was among the signers, said the newspaper's good work needed to be defended from censorship.

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Censorship backlash poses a challenge to China's leaders

GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - Hundreds of supporters of one of China's most liberal newspapers demonstrated outside its headquarters on Monday, backing a strike by journalists against interference by the provincial propaganda chief.

The rare anti-censorship protest happened in Guangzhou, capital of wealthy Guangdong, China's most liberal province and birthplace of the reforms, begun three decades ago, that propelled China to become the world's second-largest economy.

The outcry began late last week when reporters at the influential Southern Weekly newspaper accused censors of replacing an original New Year's letter to readers that called for a constitutional government with another piece lauding the party's achievements.

Police allowed the demonstration, suggesting the Guangdong government, led by newly appointed Hu Chunhua, a rising political star, may want to tread carefully in tackling public discontent over censorship.

The protesters, many of them youths, held signs with slogans such as "Freedom of expression is not a crime," and "Chinese people want freedom". Others made speeches defending the paper an laid chrysanthemums, a flower used in Chinese funerals, to symbolically mourn the death of press freedom.

"The Nanfang (Southern) Media Group is relatively willing to speak the truth in China so we need to stand up for its courage and support it now," Ao Jiayang, a young worker for a non-governmental organization, told Reuters.

"We hope that through this we can fight for media freedom in China," Ao said. "Today's turnout reflects that more and more people in China have a civic consciousness."

PETITIONS

On Sunday night, the Southern Weekly's official microblog denied that the removal of the New Year letter was due to censorship, saying the "online rumors were false".

Many Southern Weekly journalists distanced themselves from the statement and said the blog had been taken over by management, and pledged to go on strike the next day.

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Chinese hold anti-censorship protest outside newspaper

BEIJING, China - Editors of a Chinese newspaper known for bold reporting were meeting Tuesday with propaganda officials to find a way out of a censorship dispute that has triggered protests and evolved into a political challenge for China's new leadership.

What started out as a confrontation by Southern Weekly journalists with a top censor over a New Year's editorial has rapidly become a focal point driving public calls for the authoritarian Communist Party government to loosen its grip on information.

The dispute centres on how the editorial, originally calling for political reform, was transformed into a tribute praising the Communist Party. Scholars have signed open letters calling for the censor's dismissal, celebrities are speaking out for the paper on microblogs and hundreds of people gathered for a second day outside the publication's office bearing flowers and signs in support.

On Tuesday, the paper's editorial committee was to hold a fourth round of negotiations with its top management, which is part of the provincial propaganda office, according to a Southern Weekly editor. The editor spoke on condition of anonymity because of an internal directive not to talk to the foreign media.

Propaganda officials want the newspaper to publish as per normal on Thursday but editors are negotiating over whether to do so, and the terms under which they would be willing, for example, if they could include a letter to readers explaining the incident, the editor said.

The committee is also pushing a larger appeal to abolish censorship of the newspaper's content prior to publication, the editor said. The suggestion is that Communist Party leaders could provide direction but not interfere with reporting and editing, and should refrain from taking issue with content until after publication, the editor said.

Protesters again gathered Tuesday outside the offices of the newspaper in the southern city of Guangzhou bearing signs and shouting slogans, said two participants. A handful of party supporters had also showed up and they were engaged in heated debates with the crowd, they said.

"Southern Weekly is the only mainland newspaper that, relatively speaking, is more able to report the truth," said one of the protesters, Cheng Qiubo, a democracy activist. "We are very angry that it has been censored ... so we hope that this country can have media freedom, to abolish the news censorship system."

The issue also galvanized a wide variety of people on China's popular Twitter-like microblogs, with many journalists, scholars, entrepreneurs and celebrities posting messages of support for the newspaper's stance.

"One word of truth outweighs the whole world," celebrity Chinese actress Yao Chen quoted the Russian Nobel Prize Literature winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn in a post that was accompanied by the newspaper's logo.

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Chinese newspaper in censorship row holds talks with propaganda officials as protest continues