China

Three Uighur-language website managers were sentenced Friday to prison terms of three to 10 years after being found guilty under broad charges of “endangering state security.” The men had been jailed after ethnic rioting in July 2009 in Urumqi, capital of the far-western, predominantly Muslim, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Nijat Azat, who managed the website Shabnam, was sentenced to a 10...

China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has voiced its support for journalists' rights of supervision after police in an east China county wrongly issued an arrest warrant for a journalist, official news agency Xinhua has reported. "News organisations have the right to know, interview, cover, criticise and monitor events regarding national and public interests. Journalistic...

An editor and several journalists of Shanghai's National Business Daily were attacked Friday by men claiming to work for a shampoo maker whose products have been alleged to contain toxic chemicals, the newspaper said. The newspaper's spokeswoman Xu Yuanyuan said police detained a man claiming to be a sales manager for BaWang International and three others after the attack at the newspapers' office...

The police of Suichang County in east China's Zhejiang Province cancelled a detention warrant for a journalist who was accused by a public company of defamation Thursday morning, state-owned Xinhua news agency has reported. The police of Lishui City, which administers Suichang, ordered the county's public security bureau to cancel the detention warrant for Qiu Ziming, a reporter of Economic...

A Chinese court in the restive western region of Xinjiang has given a Uighur journalist and website manager 15 years in jail for endangering state security by speaking to foreign journalists, his employer said on Friday. Uighurbiz.net, where Gheyret Niyaz worked as an administrator, posted a notice saying he had been sentenced at a hearing on Friday, quoting his wife who was in the court. "Gheyret...

The Chinese government is all set to press charges against Gheyret Niyaz, a Uighur journalist and website manager. According to the Uyghur American Association (UAA), Niyazi will be tried in Urumqi, the capital of China’s far-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region on July 28. Niyaz faces charges of “endangering state security” stemming from ethnic unrest in Xinjiang in July 2009, New York-based...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has commended a threat made against journalist Liu Jianfeng on July 9, after he refused to take a bribe from officials in Jiangxi province in eastern China. Liu, a journalist with China Economic Times, received a life-threatening note after he reported on his blog that people had drowned during floods in Jiangxi on July 8. Officials acknowledge...

Chinese police have reportedly arrested two Uighur journalists who published online about Uighur issues in Xinjiang, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Friday. Chinese authorities blamed local and international Uighur websites for fueling July's ethnic violence, according to international news reports. Security officials arrested website manager Hailaite Niyazi in his...

Detentions of journalists reporting on ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang region has been continuing, according to press freedom groups. The Beijing-based Uighur academic and blogger Ilham Tohti, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has been missing since July 8 when he told a friend he had received a notice of detention. On July 6, Beijing public security officials questioned...

Authorities in northwest Chinese province of Xinjiang are said to be harassing journalists reporting on ethnic rioting in regional capital Urumqi, according to press freedom groups. One journalist was detained for two hours in Urumqi Tuesday for reporting independently of a government-organised media tour of the damaged city, according to National Public Radio. "I went independently of the group...