Agence France Presse

Beijing, April 16:

The jailing of editors at one of China’s leading reformist newspapers has sparked a rarely seen uproar among Chinese intellectuals and journalists, provoking online protests and open letters to the government. The furore is over the jailing last month of Yu Huafeng, former vice chief editor of the Southern Metropolitan Daily and Li Minying, former deputy Communist Party head at the Southern Daily group. They were sentenced to 12 and 11 years respectively for graft.

Also involved is the former editor-in-chief of the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolitan Daily Cheng Yizhong who was formally charged with corruption. "From looking at the circumstances surrounding this case... there are a lot of unclear points and contradictions including the trial process and the level of transparency," said an open letter signed by eight scholars and journalists, seen today.

"If these issues cannot be adequately explained then not only will undoable harm be done to Yu, Li and Cheng, but will also bring about a strong level of suspicion on the capacity of the judicial system to administer justice." The letter was signed by Zhan Jiang, a professor at China Youth Political Institute, Wang Keqin, a journalist at China Economic Times, Chen Feng, an editor at Beijing Times, Liu Chang, a journalist at China Youth Daily and four other intellectuals.

Yu and Li were convicted for handing out bonuses to the editorial staff. The open letter appeared as hundreds of postings on the wangshengs.tongtu.net website urged a retrial and voiced widespread support for the paper’s leaders. Most of the postings said the sentencings were politically motivated and likely related to the daily’s uncovering of the government’s failed attempt to cover up the SARS epidemic last year. Equally damning was the paper’s in-depth reports on the beating to death in police custody of an educated migrant worker, which exposed police brutality and resulted in the police losing their power to jail anyone in China not carrying proper identification, work papers or money.

"I believe the court is becoming more and more a tool to attack press freedom," He Weifang, a professor at Beijing University’s Law School, said on the website. "In cases that call into question our main freedoms, we have never seen the court rule in accordance with the 35 article of the constitution.This is a situation that causes us to lose hope," he said, referring to the constitution’s long held rights of freedom of speech, press, assembly and religious belief.