Asia

[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...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) supports calls from Australian affiliate, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (the Alliance), for full cooperation in an upcoming coroner's inquest into the deaths of five journalists, dubbed the Balibo five, who were killed in 1975 in the East Timorese town of Balibo while covering the Indonesian invasion. According to recent Australian...

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...

China's leaders have hauled in 450 of the nation's media chiefs to order them to more closely toe the government line and step up their allegiance to the Communist Party, state press said on Wednesday. Chinese President Hu Jintao and other party leaders, including propaganda czar Li Changchun, met with the media chiefs at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday to reinforce the message...

BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese court has freed a journalist convicted of extortion for exposing local corruption but has refused to overturn his guilty verdict, his wife said Saturday. The Intermediate People's Court in the southern city of Shaoyang ordered Yang Xiaoqing released on bail last month after he served seven months of a one-year sentence, said his wife, Gong Jie. Last Tuesday, the court...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has hailed the news that Yang Xiaoqing, a journalist based in Longhui in the southern province of Hunan, has been released as a result of a court decision in the nearby city of Shaoyang, on 17 October 2006. Detained since 22 January, Yang had been serving a one-year sentence for alleged extortion. "Guilty but free - this decision is a half-measure that fails to cover up the fact...