A Chinese Newspaper Restates its Call for a Reporter’s Release

A Chinese Newspaper Restates its Call for a Reporter’s Release

October 24, 2013, 6:07 am 

By AUSTIN RAMZY

CHINATOPIX, via Associated Press A woman held up the front page of The New Express newspaper with the words “Please Release Him” on Wednesday in Guangzhou.

Updated, 7:15 a.m. EST | A Chinese newspaper has not backed down from its bold public request that a reporter detained in a defamation investigation be released. On Thursday, one day after the Guangzhou-based New Express ran a front-page story under the huge headline, “Please Release Him,” the paper followed up with another front-page call: “Again, Please Release Him.”
The newspaper’s reporter, Chen Yongzhou, has been held since Oct. 18 by the police in the central Chinese city of Changsha on “suspicion of damaging commercial reputation.” Beginning in September 2012, Mr. Chen had written a series of stories critical of the business practices of Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Company, China’s second-largest heavy equipment maker. Zoomlion, which is listed in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, has denied allegations of wrongdoing.
The company is party owned by the Hunan provincial government, prompting some critics to suggest that the local authorities have pushed the police to block negative reporting. The New Express has argued that its dispute with Zoomlion should be handled as a civil rather criminal case.
Although the newspaper’s first plea filled its front page on Wednesday, its second-day headline ran below declarations from Chinese President Xi Jinping on reform and from the country’s anti-corruption czar, Wang Qishan, on battling graft.
And the New Express’s second-day coverage of its reporter’s detention relied heavily on reports from the state-run Xinhua news agency, an indication that underneath its daring headline the paper has had to tone down its discussion of the case. Chinese propaganda authorities sometimes direct newspapers to use only reports from Xinhua as a way to thwart more independent journalism. Reached by telephone on Thursday, a New Express representative declined to comment.
The Xinhua report carried by the paper quoted Du Feng, an assistant to Zoomlion’s chief executive, who said that Mr. Chen’s reports on the company included a large amount of false information and that the journalist never sought an interview with the company.
In an awkward twist, the New Express even cited Xinhua as quoting the paper’s own representative, who said that Mr. Chen’s stories on Zoomlion were objective and part of normal reporting work. “The New Express’s biggest principle in handling this matter is the hope that this is settled through a legal framework,” the newspaper’s unnamed representative said, according to the Xinhua report.
Li Datong, a former newspaper editor in Beijing who was fired in 2006 for running daring material in the weekly journal Freezing Point, said the New Express’s front-page call had probably angered local officials responsible for overseeing the newspaper, which is based in southeastern Guangdong Province. As a result, New Express has probably been told it must limit what it can publish from now on about the case. “Guangdong has its own requirements,” Mr. Li said. “They’re telling them: ‘You shouldn’t be saying whatever you want’.”
Some of China’s more aggressive publications have taken up the New Express’s case. In an editorial, the Beijing News called Mr. Chen’s detention an “embodiment of misuse of judicial powers.” The Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily said that, although such conflicts between businesses and media outlets have happened before, they have been treated as civil cases. “In this case of a journalist being detained and the local police using criminal-case methods to enter into a dispute over reputation between a business and the media, the mistaken understanding and application of the law is hard to understand and leaves one speechless,” the newspaper said in an editorial. The Henan Business Daily’s front page headline on Thursday implored readers to “Pay Attention to Chen Yongzhou.”
On Chinese microblogs the case has been widely discussed since the New Express first published its call for Mr. Chen’s release. Its initial message was shared more than 80,000 times in the 24 hours after it was posted on the newspaper’s Sina Weibo account.
In a sign of high-level attention being placed on the case, the General Administration of Press and Publishing, which governs China’s print and online media, said it reaffirmed journalists’ rights to report and was paying close attention to Mr. Chen’s detention, according to a story in the agency’s official publication. The All-China Journalists’ Association, the officially sanctioned trade group, has also asked police to ensure Mr. Chen’s safety.
Mia Li contributed research from Beijing. Copy  http://www.nytimes.com