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China consistently ranks as the world's biggest jailer of journalists. According to the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, Beijing has currently detained more than 100 journalists. But the detention of two journalists in particular this year, after they published an expose of a senior communist party official has sparked a rare outcry in the country. NPR's Emily Feng reports.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Wang Cailiang is a gruff but very direct man. He has litigated some ugly cases over building demolitions and forced land seizures.
WANG CAILIANG: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: But this month, it is the detention of two journalists that is top of mind for the Beijing-based lawyer. The journalists are the veteran investigative reporter Liu Hu and photojournalist Wu Yingjiao who police said were detained on suspicion of making false accusations and conducting illegal business operations. Lawyer Wang Cailiang is one of several prominent lawyers and public affairs commentators who have written publicly about the case, arguing the journalistic pair should be freed.
WANG: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: Wang argues society needs the media to reveal wrongdoings in order for there to be justice. In this case, the journalists Liu and Wu had published a big investigation late last month, naming several government officials, including a county-level party official, who they found had canceled investors' contracts, seized the investors' property, and then the same government officials launched their own project there.
WANG: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: Wang says there has been an obvious retreat in public oversight of the government in China and in the ability for official state media to report the truth, which is why he says independent reporters like Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao are more important than ever.
ALEKSANDRA BIELAKOWSKA: We have seen unprecedented repression against media in China.
FENG: This is Aleksandra Bielakowska. She tracks press freedoms issues in China at advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, and she says she has seen a marked decline in the admittedly limited space for a free press in China.
BIELAKOWSKA: Even the red lines that were allowed in the past such as #MeToo movement, some labor rights and even some instances of corruption on the health issues, this was allowed 15 years ago to still be quite freely reported in China. And now we see that it's almost impossible.
FENG: Bielakowska says it was courageous of both journalists to put their full names in the byline of this investigation because it's sensitive to report on the seizure of private assets and businesses. Liu and Wu crossed this line. The same party official they investigated had also allegedly seized people's homes, including forcibly demolishing two apartments owned by a senior law professor whose family says he was driven to suicide in 2021 by the ordeal. His death reverberated in China's legal world.
LI JINXING: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: This is Li Jinxing, a corporate lawyer, and he says there is no law strong enough to protect private assets in these cases. Li defended private entrepreneurs in dozens of court cases in China before being stripped of his legal license.
LI: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: And he says what the two detained journalists wrote about is a classic case of local officials luring in private investment, then confiscating the investors' assets.
WANG: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: Which is why Wang Cailiang, the Beijing lawyer, says Chinese society needs more whistleblowers like Liu and Wu. Liu Hu was wrongfully detained before in 2013 for a whole year after he published an investigation into other corrupt officials, but he was freed and even profiled positively by state media. This time, his and Wu's future is less certain.
Emily Feng, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW GIALANELLA'S "ANOTHER YEAR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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