Reporters Without Borders challenges Chinese prime minister about the case of daily Nanfang Dushi Bao (boxun.com)

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans fronti¨¨res) appealed to Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao to release three senior staff from the Chinese daily Nanfang Dushi Bao, including the celebrated journalist Cheng Yizhong.

The international press freedom organisation challenged the Chinese premier to publicly explain the prison sentences against them as he toured European countries (Germany, Belgium, Italy, Britain and Ireland). His tour is designed to boost dialogue and co-operation with the EU and to advocate China¹s reform programme.

³One cannot come to Europe to defend reforms started in China while at the same time allowing three reforming journalists to be sentenced to heavy prison terms for publishing articles that upset the authorities,² said Reporters Without Borders in a letter to Chinese embassies in countries visited by the premier.

The Nanfang Dushi Bao case damages the credibility of the Wen Jiabao government¹s reform policy. The organisation also called on the governments of the European countries visited by Wen to raise the cases of the three journalists.

The organisation is pressing for the release of journalists Yu Huafeng, Li Minying and Cheng Yizhong and an end to legal action against the newspaper¹s former bosses.

Since 20 March 2004, Cheng Yizhong, former editor-in-chief of Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Metropolis News), has been imprisoned without sentence by public security in Guangzhou. On the eve of his arrest, a people¹s court in Dongshan, Guangdong province, sentenced former general manager Yu Huafeng and former editor Li Minying, to 12 and 11 years respectively for ³corruption² and ³embezzlement of public funds².

The prosecutor said that Yu Huafeng had stolen 100,000 yuan (nearly 10,000 euros) from the paper and shared 480,000 yuan (nearly 47,000 euros) among senior staff at the newspaper, whose advertising revenue reached nearly 100 million euros in 2003.

The arrests were in fact linked to a series of investigations carried by the liberal Guangzhou newspaper, particularly on Sars and the death of a young graphic artist, Sun Zhigang, beaten to death in a Guangzhou police station. They were all sacked from the newspaper before being detained.

This conspiracy by the local authorities, including Guangzhou police chief, Zhu Suisheng, against this brave daily aims to foster a climate of fear among Chinese journalists. Reporters Without Borders has spoken to several of them. They described themselves as "crushed² and ³terrified² by the arrests of the three journalists. (boxun.com)