BanGFW, or Ban Great Firewall, is an online global campaign to break down the cyber wall that hinders China’s residents from accessing information from the free world.
A group of Chinese non-IT activists, including lawyers and journalists, launched BanGFW on March 8, 2023.
The movement quickly drew the regime’s attention. The communist secret police initiated a special month-long battle against the movement, according to Qiao Xinxin, one of the organizers and a former journalist for Radio Free Asia.
Origin
Qiao says at least 95 percent of the online channels going to China are blocked because of the cyber wall.
“The majority of our potential readers are inside the wall,” he told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times, “We’ve always found this wall to be quite abominable.”
China’s Great Firewall, or Golden Shield Project, set up in 1998, is managed by the regime’s Ministry of Public Security to monitor and censor what can and cannot be seen in China through an online network.
Qiao explained that BanGFW hopes to invite global citizens to help the Chinese bring down the wall, an effort that goes beyond the technical support of virtual private networks (VPN), and allow them to freely access the internet.
BanGFW Official explained, “The public opinion in the international circles of English, Japanese, Russian, and so on, is what frightens and annoys the senior Communist Party officials.
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) doesn’t care about the noise made by people inside the wall. What scares them is sanctions imposed on their overseas mistresses, banknotes, food, etc.”
Feasibility
The BanGFW organizers believe the only reliable way to tear down the Great Firewall is for the CCP to face a public trial for imposing it in the first place.
That becomes achievable when millions of people join the movement, global media report on the movement, and the world governments hold the CCP accountable.
It is easy to join the movement, according to Qiao, by simply displaying the BanGFW sign and posting it on the web.
To facilitate the effectiveness of the activities, the group published a “Handbook of Ban GFW Movement,” on 5 April.
By Mary Hong
