China

SHANGHAI, China - The savage beating death of a reporter has shone a rare light on the corrupt, money-driven underbelly of Chinese journalism, where many reporters take bribes to write good news and extort companies to suppress their dirty laundry. President Hu Jintao has ordered a probe into the killing of China Trade News reporter Lan Chengzhang, who Chinese media say may have been trying to...

New York, January 24, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Chinese President Hu Jintao’s call for a swift and thorough investigation into the brutal beating of Zhongguo Maoyi Bao (China Trade News) journalist Lan Chengzhang at the site of an illegal mine in northern China’s Shanxi province. Lan died of a brain hemorrhage in Datong city hospital on January 10. Seven suspects have been...

BEIJING (AFP) - China's Internet population could overtake the United States as the world's largest within two years, but foreign dotcoms may have to wait much longer to profit from it, analysts say. While usage will pick up as computers get cheaper and the Internet becomes more attractive, local culture and habits constitute formidable barriers to entry for overseas businesses, they said. "I...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has voiced its outrage at the brutal murder of a Chinese journalist who was beaten to death on January 10, in the Huiyuan county of the Shanxi province, and has called for a full investigation into the case. According to online news reports, Lan Chengzhang of Beijing's China Trade News was investigating a story on China's coal mining...

[BEIJING] Leading Chinese journalists have called for dedicated science coverage, as their field is increasingly marginalised by market-oriented media reforms. The Chinese Society of Science and Technology Journalism (CSSTJ) intends to petition China's official media watchdog, the Central Publicity Department (CPD) about the situation. Speaking at a CSSTJ seminar in Beijing (12 January), Li Bin, a...

(RSF/IFEX) - There has been a wave of violations of online free expression since the start of the year, says Reporters Without Borders. A website covering corruption cases was shut down on 8 January 2007, the Sichuan authorities are continuing to enforce an Internet ban on Tibetan poet Woeser and the wife of Yang Maodong (Guo Feixiong), one of the 50 cyber-dissidents jailed in China, said on 12...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned Huang Liangtian's dismissal as editor of "Bai Xing" ("Popular Masses"), a monthly owned by the agriculture ministry that has acquired a reputation for investigative reporting. Under political pressure, Huang's superiors told him on 30 December 2006 he was being transferred to a minor publication. "After starting 2006 with purges in 'Xin Jing Bao...

(RSF/IFEX) - Journalist Ching Cheong, seriously ill and serving a five-year sentence for "spying", spent his 57th birthday in prison on 22 December 2006, as Reporter Without Borders and the Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) presented a petition for his release. The petition for the release of Ching, who has been in custody since April 2005, attracted 3009 signatures. Before handing over...

Reporters Without Borders expressed huge relief at the early release of journalist Gao Qinrong, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1999 for exposing a corruption scandal implicating top provincial officials. Gao, who worked for the official Xinhua news agency, was arrested on 4 December 1998 after writing about corruption linked to an irrigation project in Shanxi province in central China...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has called on the Chinese government to reveal the names of the journalist and his three assistants from the southern Guizhou province who were reportedly arrested in Linfen, in the central province of Shanxi, on 3 November 2006 for investigating an explosion at the Luweitan coal mine. The organisation also asked the authorities to explain why they were...