MCLC: newspaper appeals for reporter's release

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Kevin Carrico <carricok at stanford.edu>
Subject: newspaper appeals for reporter's release
***********************************************************

Source: Sinosphere, New York Times Blog (10/22/13):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/chinese-newspaper-asks-polic
e-to-free-detained-reporter/?_r=0

Chinese Newspaper Asks Police to Free Detained Reporter
By AUSTIN RAMZY

Updated, 3:19 a.m. EST| A newspaper based in the southern Chinese city of
Guangzhou has published a bold, front-page appeal for the release of a
detained reporter, prompting an outpouring of support online and
sympathetic statements from prominent media and business figures.

Under the huge, three-character headline, “Please Release Him,” the New
Express said in Wednesday’s editions that one of its reporters, Chen
Yongzhou, has been held since Oct. 18 by the Changsha police for his
investigations into the finances of China’s second-largest construction
equipment maker, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Company.

Mr. Chen was formally detained on Oct. 19 under “suspicion of damaging
commercial reputation,” said the police in Changsha, the capital of Hunan
Province and home to Zoomlion’s headquarters. The New Express, a scrappy
tabloid, had run a series of stories questioning Zoomlion’s revenue and
profit figures.

Zoomlion, which is partly owned by the Hunan government, has denied
allegations that it faked its results. Trading of the company’s shares in
Shenzhen and Hong Kong was temporarily suspended in May after the New
Express accused Zoomlion of doctoring sales numbers.

The New Express said on Wednesday that it had reviewed 15 articles Mr.
Chen had written about the company and found only one small error. “We
always thought, you only need to report responsibly and you won’t have any
problems,” the newspaper said. “The facts confirm that we were too naïve,”
it added.

The newspaper said Chen was summoned to a Guangzhou police station and was
taken into custody Friday by police visiting from Changsha, 700 km (437
miles) to the north. Chen was put in a Mercedes-Benz and driven away, the
New Express reported, citing his wife.

On Wednesday morning, screenshots of the front page were circulating
widely on Sina Weibo and other social media in China. The response was
similar to the burst of public support for another Guangzhou-based
publication, Southern Weekend, after it aired concerns about growing press
constraints earlier this year.

At least one newspaper, The Beijing News, posted a statement of support.
“Changsha police must not remain silent. Please show what evidence you
have in the light of day. Please let the law decide whether to detain him
or free him, not who has more power or the loudest voice.”

Li Chengpeng, a popular blogger, wrote that the authorities never arrested
people when official media such as China Central Television, the national
broadcaster, made mistakes. “Now one newspaper wants to speak some truth,
but any mistake leads to an arrest,” he wrote on his Sina Weibo microblog.
“The bottom line is you create a world of one voice, one right answer and
one press release. Why don’t you just have one single paper with a
readership of two people then?”

The real estate tycoon Pan Shiyi wrote on Sina Weibo, where he has more
than 16 million followers: “For many years now, when some Chinese business
reporters write stories about us, they don’t read our financial reports or
statements but make up their own stories. Still, reporters shouldn’t be
detained willy nilly. Has any good company ever been brought down by a
news story?”

Some commentators questioned whether the Changsha authorities were acting
at the behest of a powerful firm connected to the local government. “The
police are there to uphold the law, not to protect the backyard of a few
special companies and people,” Yu Jianrong, a researcher at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, wrote on his Sina Weibo account.

Even Hu Xijin, the editor of the Communist Party-run Global Times, who has
clashed with more liberal elements in the Chinese media before,
recommended that the national journalists association get involved to
protect the rights of the reporter.

Maya Wang, a Hong Kong based-researcher for Human Rights Watch, an
advocacy group, said she could not recall any other Chinese newspaper
coming out so forthrightly to demand the release of one of its reporters.

“The fact that they published it is quite astonishing,” she said.

“There have been other newspapers that have spoken out on behalf of their
journalists, but I’ve never seen a front page like that,” she said. “I
imagine that the propaganda department will be calling them and
admonishing them for doing so.”

The New Express piece was noteworthy both for its public appeal and its
sharp tone, said David Bandurski, a researcher with the University of Hong
Kong’s China Media Project. “I can’t remember anything like this, a
front-page editorial that’s quite acerbic and pretty snarky,” he said.

The newspaper stressed that it had gone public with the story only after
exhausting other channels. “First they would try deal with the
authorities, with government officials,” said Mr. Bandurski. “They would
try to resolve the conflict. They don’t want to be seen as having built it
up into something bigger or trying to make a fuss or make it a larger
issue of justice. This is when you get into trouble.”

Mr. Chen is the second journalist from The New Express to be detained in
recent months. The first, Liu Hu, was detained in Beijing in August on
defamation charges for alleging corruption by several local government
officials, including a former vice mayor in the city of Chongqing and the
police chief in Shaanxi Province.

Despite a recent tightening of controls on the press and online speech in
China, financial reporting has remained an area of relative openness, said
Mr. Bandurski. While all Chinese news outlets answer to the propaganda
authorities, publications often try to push the bounds of what can be
reported, in part to win readers. Guangdong Province, where The New
Express is headquartered, has traditionally been home to some of China’s
more daring media. It is far from the political power center of Beijing
and has close ties with Hong Kong, the semi-autonomous Chinese city with a
freewheeling press.

In January, journalists at Southern Weekend, based in Guangzhou, the
capital of Guangdong Province, protested after a propaganda official
rewrote a New Year’s editorial on political reform. Their effort to defend
their rather limited autonomy within the Chinese press system received
widespread support online.

Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Hong Kong and Mia Li contributed
research from Beijing.

=================================================

Source: South China Morning Post (10/24/13):
http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1338810/new-express-campaign
-detained-journalist-chen-yongzhou

Media campaign for detained journalist Chen Yongzhou gathers pace
Patrick Boehler patrick.boehler at scmp.com

For the second day in a row, the Guangdong-based New Express newspaper has
called for the release of its journalist Chen Yongzhou in a front page
editorial.

“Again, please release him”, the tabloid wrote on its front page. The
paper called on police in Changsha to handle Chen’s case according to the
law and argued that the authorities in the Hunan provincial capital had
“abused their power” by pursuing criminal proceedings against a journalist
who was just doing his job.

Chen’s paper caused a public outcry on Wednesday when it urged for Chen’s
release in a rare front page editorial. Many renowned commentators, from
liberal writer Li Chengpeng to the conservative editor-in-chief of the
Global Times, Hu Xijin, have spoken out in support of Chen.

Even the national media regulator, the State General Administration of
Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, issued a statement saying
it was “very concerned” with Chen’s detention.

The muckraking journalist is the second staffer from the New Express to be
detained for his reporting in as many months. Liu Hu, a Chongqing-based
reporter, has since been charged with libel after calling for an
investigation into a senior official.

Chen was detained last Friday by police in Guangzhou and has since been
held at a detention centre in Changsha, Hunan province, on charges of
“damaging the commercial reputation” of Zoomlion, a local maker of
construction equipment.

The company said on Wednesday it had filed a police report, arguing that
his series of investigative reports alleging financial fraud was incorrect
and damaged the company’s reputation.

Police said on Thursday that they had decided to pursue the case and would
report further steps in due course.

By Wednesday evening, media gag orders started to circulate among
journalists online. Some of the tens of thousands of comments on
microblogs have since been deleted.

However major newspapers such as the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis
Daily, the Beijing News, Beijing Times and The Mirror in the capital, the
Hangzhou-based Qianjiang Evening News, the Jinan-based Qilu Evening News
and the Henan Business Daily in Zhengzhou have called for Chen’s release.