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Journalist Case File: Yu Huafeng
Agency: 南方都市报 (Southern Metropolitan News)
Date Imprisoned: January 2004
Charge: Corruption, Embezzlement
Sentence: 12 Years (reduced to 8 on appeal)
Yu, a former deputy editor for 南方都市报 (Southern Metropolitan News), was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in January 2004 for corruption and embezzlement of fund. According to reports carried by Xinhua, China’s state media agency, Yu had embezzled $US70,000 in funds, which he used to make illegal payments to senior staff members while he was working with南方都市报. His sentence was reduced later reduced to 8 years in on June 7, 2004.
Li Minying, one the men that Yu was accused of bribing with a portion of the money, was sentenced to 11 years (reduced to 6 on appeal).
Reports obtained by the CPJ, a US based reporters’ rights group, suggest that money distributed by Yu had been obtained through legal channels, and that it was distributed, in line accepted Chinese corporate practices, as part of the news group’s bonus scheme.
Prior to his imprisonment, the 南方都市报 had begun a campaign to expose local corruption and to raise the prominence of socially important issues, including poverty and official abuses of power.
In March 2003, the paper published a story about a young graphics designer named Sun Zhigang, who had been detained by security forces in Guangzhou, for not having a permanent resident card for the area, and who was subsequently beaten to death while in police custody.
The law under which Sun was detained, which was designed to prevent farmers from taking part time work in cities, was changed shortly after his murder.
In late December 2003, the paper reported on a suspected SARS outbreak in Guangzhou. Government officials knew of the suspected outbreak but had elected to keep the information from the public at that time.
The story severally embarrassed regional officials and prompted outcry when claims were made that the government was seeking to cover up a new outbreak as it had done with the initial SARS epidemic.
Both Yu and Li were senior staff members with the news group at the time of the stories.
It's a absolute joke isn't it? The chinese govt want (demand?) the rest of
the world treat china like a responsible member of the international
community and yet the entire political system and ruling class here
blatantly protects it's political/economic power by snuffing out anything
or anyone that dares to draw attention to, or even mentions, the arbitary,
ruthless and self-serving way that the CCP exercises of political
power.
The chinese political system is rotten to the core and is full of greedy bureaucrats who considr themselves to be well and truly above the law, which they most certainly are in china.
The case of Yu Huafeng is an typical example of the realities in modern china .
Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Metropolitan News) courageously reported (as you mentioned above ACB) a number of instances of offical lies, cover-ups, corruption, incompentance and excesses---exposing government officals here for what a lot of them actually are i.e. a bunch of power-hungry, greedy, corrupt and lying crooks.....and in china in 2005,exposing this "reality" is wholly unacceptable.
Before their arrest, Yu, Li and Cheng Yizhong were hailed for forcing back the boundaries in what was once hoped would be a "new china" of increasinly greater media freedom.
They all ended up in jail, victims of a revenge campaign by the very men and women who they exposed.
I think it's true to say that under Hu, Li and Cheng, the Southern Metropolitan Daily/Southern Weekend newspapers broke a lot of new ground in chinese journalism. Now, the cases of those three courageous men serve as nothing more than an example to all other journalist in china about what happens to those who DARE to critcise, expose or embarrass the regime here.
This episode, for me, sums up the Hu Jintao Dynasty, one-step forward and three-steps back.
Re Sun Zhigang, one thing that I remember hearing at the time of his murder wa sthat the story and subsequent media attention ruined the promotion prospects of the then Guangzhou police chief. He, again I heard, ordered the paper not to publish the story when it contacted him to ask for a response.
After the paper published full details he supposedly rang the editor vowed revenge.
As
the rest of the world gasps in awe at the developemnt of the chinese
economy, they'd do well to remember people like Yu
Huafeng.
Thanks.
MaDing
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