Yesterday Diane reported that a Chinese reporter had been sentenced to a ten-year jail term for warning foreign journalists, via Yahoo!, of potential local violence. As Chinese journalists continue to suffer the brutal consequences for their candid reporting, today the deputy editor of Taizhou Wanbao, Wu Xiangu, succumbed to injuries sustained while beaten by fifty policemen in response to an article published in his paper, alleging that police were overcharging people for bicycle licenses.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reports that Chinese “authorities had prevented local media from reporting on Wu’s death, and that his colleagues believed that criminal charges should be filed in the case. Journalists who report on local crime and corruption in China’s newly competitive media environment face increasing incidents of violent attack in retribution for their work.”
