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Chinese Reporter Chasing Corruption Claims Disappears
Reuters
Monday, Dec 15, 2008
BEIJING—A Chinese newspaper reporter investigating a suspicious
real estate deal has not been seen since hotel security tapes
showed five men pushing him into a car two weeks ago, his son
and a newspaper said on Monday.
The case appears to be the second in recent weeks involving journalists
who colleagues said were targeted for probing graft in a part
of north China rich in both coal and corruption claims.
Guan Jian, reporter for the small Network News (Wangluo Bao)
paper, was seized from a hotel lobby in north China's Shanxi province
on Dec. 1 and forced into a waiting four-wheel drive.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Video footage from the Jinjiang Inn, published in the Beijing
News, showed Guan in the lobby when the men arrived. He has not
contacted his family since, his son told Reuters.
"His friends couldn't reach him, his colleagues couldn't
either. At first we thought he had just gone on a reporting trip,
but then after several days when he still wasn't in touch, we
got worried," Guan Yufei said in a phone interview.
He travelled to Shanxi to look for his father, who was in the
provincial capital, Taiyuan, investigating claims of illegal land-use
by a real estate company with official connections.
The younger Guan came back with only tapes of the apparent kidnapping,
but said he was hopeful his father was still alive.
"We have basically confirmed that he has not had a 'mishap',"
Guan told Reuters. He declined to say more for fear of jeopardising
the search for his father.
The Network News held a meeting to discuss Guan's disappearance
and decided the best course of action was to work with local police
to try to find him, a colleague told Reuters.
Police in Taiyuan told Reuters that they were investigating the
case, but declined to comment further.
Risks to journalists
Guan's disappearance highlights the danger to reporters probing
corruption in a country where officials are often close to business
while also wielding power over police and courts.
Killings of reporters are virtually unheard of, but beatings,
detentions and arrests are a risk for those who take on the powerful.
Guan's case follows the controversial arrest of a reporter from
powerful state broadcaster China Central Television who was seized
from her home in Beijing earlier this month by Shanxi prosecutors
who claimed she took bribes.
The television reporter, Li Min, was investigating the prosecutors
for a story when they travelled to Beijing to seize her, Chinese
media said.
Provincial officials are not always able to extend their local
power to control journalists in Beijing, whose employers often
have government connections of their own.
A lawyer working for Li's family said that she appeared to be
the victim of a "terrifying" abuse of power to silence
her work.
"This is a crude trampling on citizens' constitutional rights
to exercise oversight and criticise (officials)", the lawyer,
Zhou Ze, said in a written statement.
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