Wednesday, October 23, 2013

China paper in detained journalist plea

This news reported an event happened in China that a Chinese newspaper published a plea to ask for releasing one of its journalists who had been detained by the police for “damage to business reputation”. The news made a fact claim that the Chinese newspaper the New Express had published a plea in its front page, and it also indicates a policy claim that the journalist should be released. The reason is that he was detained without clear legal basis. It provided the background information as context that the journalist was detained because of his reports about a part state-owned construction equipment company, and the reports were “false, groundless and misleading” according to the company, and as a result, that journalist was held by police. For the New Express, they believed it is unfair. In their understanding, if they reported something wrong, they can apologise and make corrections, or even shut down. But their journalists cannot be detained without legal basis. As a result, many people, including some lawyers, some media professionals, and also some users of weibo (China’s version of twitter) commented to support the New Express. A common view is that supporting New Express is a way to safeguard the rights of its journalists and the censorship should be clear.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.