| ‘Outspoken’ media editors sacked ahead of China leadership change |
BEIJING Editors at two outspoken Chinese newspapers have been removed from their posts months before a politically sensitive handover of power in the country, press freedom groups said on Thursday.
The publisher and deputy editor of Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post, Lu Yan and Sun Jian, were reportedly removed on Wednesday, days after the Guangzhou-based New Express moved its chief editor Lu Fumin to a sister title.
Press freedom groups linked the moves to a tightening of controls on the media ahead of a 10-yearly leadership change in China’s ruling Communist party that is due to begin later this year.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said it was “deeply concerned” by the development, which came in the week top security official Zhou Yongkang called on propaganda chiefs to intensify their efforts.
“The upcoming change in leadership within China’s Politburo Standing Committee is having a chilling effect on press freedom within the country, with a heightened censorship regime swiftly censoring and punishing any independent political commentary,” the IFJ said in a statement.
David Bandurski, who runs the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong, said Beijing was “especially sensitive” at the moment, although local party officials in Shanghai and the southern province of Guangdong would likely have driven the latest changes.
“This is a time when the leadership is especially sensitive,” Bandurski said.
Separately, artist Ai Weiwei is unlikely to win a multi-million-dollar tax case that was filed against a company he founded when a court announces a verdict on Friday, the activist’s lawyer said.
“We should be able to win this case, but from what we have seen so far, this is unlikely,” Ai’s lawyer Pu Zhiqiang said.
“Originally this should have been a very simple case, but the government, police, prosecutors and the courts have tried to make this very complicated.”
Agence France-Presse
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