[JURIST] The spokesman for China's Supreme People's Court [English website; official website, in Mandarin], Sun Jungong, announced Wednesday that he had started writing his own blog [Sun weblog, in Mandarin] in order to directly communicate with the public. Sun said he will operate the blog in a semi-official capacity and that he would honestly answer questions posed there in an effort to make the judiciary more accessible to the public. Zhou Ze, a law professor quoted by a state-sponsored Xinhua report [text], said the creation of the blog signaled an increase in transparency and fairness in the country's courts.

China has taken a less favorable stance on blogs that criticize the government and in January, Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) [advocacy website] reported that Chinese activist and blogger Chen Qitang had been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison [press release; JURIST report] for disparaging remarks about the Chinese government he made on his blog [text, in Mandarin]. Chen made the comments while he was helping villagers in Sanshan Village, Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province draft legal documents appealing the confiscation of their land by the local government.