AP:Chinese reporter for banned overseas Web site arrested

The Associated Press
Published: June 5, 2007

BEIJING: A Chinese writer for an overseas news Web site has been arrested for allegedly running a criminal gang, a charge his employer said had been concocted to punish him for reporting on sensitive issues.

Sun Lin, who reported for Boxun News using the name Jie Mu, was arrested on May 30, along with more than 20 other alleged gang members, the official Nanjing Morning News newspaper said.

The report said Sun and others had extorted money from unlicensed cab drivers. Police recovered three guns and various other weapons from them, the newspaper said.

However, Boxun called the Nanjing Morning News report a fabrication and said Sun had been severely beaten in custody.

“China’s political culture will continue to change and you will have to take responsibility for your crimes, either this day or the next,” Boxun said in a report posted Monday, directing the comment to those behind Sun’s arrest.

Sun was being held at the Nanjing jail with his wife, He Fang, it said. The couple have a young daughter. The jail’s phone number could not immediately be found Tuesday and calls to the Nanjing police rang unanswered.

China’s Communist authorities control all licensed media and regularly crack down on media or reporters who exceed their unwritten bounds for openness and criticism.

Since joining the U.S.-based Boxun in September, Sun had reported on crime, property disputes and police brutality, potentially explosive issues that authorities carefully control reporting on.

Sun had reported from Beijing last month on issues including Olympic organizers’ refusal to issue credentials for Boxun to cover the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Boxun said fellow reporter Guang Yuan, who had worked with Sun on those stories, had also been questioned by police.

Sun’s work has frequently resulted in harassment from authorities, and on March 21 Nanjing officials visited his home and warned him to stop reporting for Boxun. The North Carolina-based Chinese-language Web site carries reports and essays on a wide range of issues rarely seen in the Chinese press, from corruption cases to calls for greater democracy.

Chinese authorities block the site from being seen in China.

Press freedom groups say China is the world’s leading jailer of journalists, with at least 42 behind bars, most on charges of violating vague subversion or security laws.

“We are terribly concerned about the well-being of reporter Sun Lin and his wife He Fang,” Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.

“The documented harassment of Sun for his reporting makes us exceedingly skeptical of the criminal charges now lodged against him,” the statement said.