MCLC: journalist who raised corruption charges jailed

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: journalist who raised corruption charges jailed
***********************************************************

The war against "rumors" continues.

Paul

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Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (8/29/13):
http://www.cpj.org/2013/08/chinese-journalist-who-raised-corruption-charges
-j.php

Chinese journalist who raised corruption charges jailed

Hong Kong, August 29, 2013--Chinese authorities should release a
journalist who has been jailed since Friday, after he accused an official
of wrongdoing with posts on his personal microblog, the Committee to
Protect Journalists said today.

Liu Hu, a journalist for the Guangdong-based newspaper New Express, was
arrested at his home in Chongqing province on August 23, according to
Beijing police.
<http://e.weibo.com/pinganbeijing?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fs.weibo.com%2Fuser%2F%E5
%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%B8%82%E5%85%AC%E5%AE%89%E5%B1%80%26Refer%3Dweibo_user>
He was accused of "fabricating and spreading rumors"--a charge that falls
under a wider legal umbrella of crimes of "causing trouble" or "disrupting
social order"--in connection with comments posted last month, according to
news reports
<http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1299281/chinese-american-venture-ca
pitalist-charles-xue-taken-away-beijing-police>.

Liu had urged authorities to investigate Ma Zhengqi, deputy director of
the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), for dereliction
of duty during a term as vice mayor of Chongqing. Liu accused the official
of losing millions of yuan while overseeing the suspicious privatization
of two state-owned companies, according to media reports.
<http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1292953/another-mainland-journalist
-uses-real-name-accuse-official-corruption> Liu's posts were later
removed, and his microblog accounts shut down
<http://news.sina.com.hk/news/20130826/-9-3050701/1.html> without
explanation.

In an interview
<http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1292953/another-mainland-journalist
-uses-real-name-accuse-official-corruption> with the South China Morning
Post (SCMP) in July, Liu said that in 2002 Ma allowed civil servants to
purchase the state companies for 1.7 million yuan (US$278,000), far less
than their value of 27.7 million yuan. Liu had posted a government
document allegedly showing that Ma waived investigation into the deal,
saying "What is done cannot be undone. Let's focus now on the later
development." The SCMP, citing named officials from the government and the
company, reported that there have been previous complaints and
investigations into the deal. Neither Ma nor the SAIC have publicly
addressed Liu's claims.

"Liu Hu should be released immediately. His detention is a transparent
attempt to warn others not to publicly air suspicions of wrongdoing by
officials," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon in New York. "It is
ironic that Chinese officials expend so many resources cracking down on
those who raise such allegations even as they publicly pledge to stamp out
corruption."

The Information Office of Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau
confirmed
<http://e.weibo.com/pinganbeijing?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fs.weibo.com%2Fuser%2F%E5
%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%B8%82%E5%85%AC%E5%AE%89%E5%B1%80%26Refer%3Dweibo_user>
on its Weibo page on Monday that Liu had been arrested and said the case
was being investigated.

Liu's lawyers, Zhou Ze and Si Wei Jiang, issued a statement
<http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-45-1589814-1.shtml> today confirming
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/china/2013/08/130829_liuhu_lawyer.shtml
that Liu was arrested on "suspicion of the crime of causing trouble."The
lawyers argued that online speech does not fit within any of the four
forms of "causing trouble" in a public space, as prescribed by China's
criminal law, because the legal concept of "public place" does not extend
to the Internet.

Liu's wife, Qin Ling, wrote on her Sina Weibo microblog account that
police had ransacked their house and confiscated Liu's computers and
banking cards, according to local news reports
<http://news.sina.com.hk/news/20130826/-9-3050701/1.html>. Her microblog
was subsequently shut down as well.

Journalists recently have been using their microblogs to draw attention to
corrupt officials, according to a recent report
<http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1292945/chinese-reporters-try-weibo
-expose-corruption-when-print-fails> from the SCMP. Earlier this month,
news accounts reported that more than 100 private websites had been shut
Down since May. Several of the sites were alternative news portals run by
citizen journalists. The sites have remained shuttered.

The head of China's Party Propaganda Department, Liu Qibao, said
<http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/0829/c1001-22728964.html> Wednesday
that controlling Internet opinion is his department's most important
priority, and it would "enhance measures to... supervise online speech,"
according to the Communist Party's official mouthpiece, People's Daily.

* For more data and analysis on China, visit CPJ's March 2013 special
report, "Challenged in China."
http://www.cpj.org/reports/2013/03/challenged-china-media-censorship.php