Chinese police catching protesters by pretending to be journalists

It seems like those hoping to protest over perceived wrongs by the government can't even trust "journalists" to help them out these days. Amongst their various tactics to quell unrest, Chinese police are now posing as reporters in order to catch would-be dissidents before they can even get organized, according to the Telegraph:

The latest bit of bad news is currently up on the Chinese part of the Radio Free Asia website. They were told last week that someone in Beijing pretended to be a RFA reporter in order to convene a meeting of petitioners against the government; people who have had their houses seized or been unable to pay for healthcare for their family and so on.

During the Olympics, the petitioners who dared to register for the public protest zones got carted away and sure enough the ones who showed up at this fake meeting were instantly arrested by security goons, said RFA's editor, Shao Delian. Indeed, RFA has no Beijing-based reporter and its website is blocked inside China.

So much for all that openness promised after the Olympics. With the Xinhua news offensive during the Tibet uprising anniversary and the disbanding of the group that signed Charter 08, it looks like China's censorship regime has only gotten more media savvy, and not any less draconian.