Two independent journalists were detained by Chinese authorities after publishing a report alleging corruption by a local official in southwestern China, rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Tuesday.
Chengdu police said they were investigating a 50-year-old man surnamed Liu and a 34-year-old man surnamed Wu on suspicion of making “false accusations” and carrying out “illegal business operations.” Authorities said both had been placed under “criminal coercive measures,” a term commonly used for detention. Media outlets and RSF identified the men as Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao.
The detentions followed an online article that examined alleged wrongdoing involving Pu Fayou, the Communist Party secretary of Pujiang county in Sichuan, and other county officials. The piece has since been removed from the WeChat platform.
RSF, based in Paris, condemned the arrests and said the case illustrated an increasingly hostile climate for independent reporting in China. “Anyone who dares to investigate malpractice by the Chinese regime is swiftly persecuted by the authorities,” Aleksandra Bielakowska, RSF’s Taipei-based advocacy manager, told AFP.
China ranks 178th out of 180 countries on RSF’s press freedom index and is described by the group as the world’s “biggest jailer of journalists.” Bielakowska added that under President Xi Jinping, information control has tightened to near-totalitarian levels, and independent reporters are often treated as a threat to the state.
Liu, an investigative journalist, was previously arrested in 2013 on alleged defamation charges and spent 364 days in detention before being released on bail. Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher