(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a CPJ press release: **Updates IFEX alerts of 16 February 1999, 5 October, 21 September, 30 June, 22 June and 21 April 1998, 28 October, 6 June and 9 April 1997, 20 January 1995, 14 November and 18 October 1994** CPJ Welcomes Release of Gao Yu, Urges China to Free […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a CPJ press release:
**Updates IFEX alerts of 16 February 1999, 5 October, 21 September, 30
June, 22 June and 21 April 1998, 28 October, 6 June and 9 April 1997, 20
January 1995, 14 November and 18 October 1994**
CPJ Welcomes Release of Gao Yu, Urges China to Free Other 11 Imprisoned
Journalists
New York, N.Y., Feb. 16, 1999-The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
welcomed the release of Chinese journalist Gao Yu on Monday after five
years’ imprisonment in Beijing, while cautioning that China’s press
freedom climate has worsened in recent months. At least 11 people remain
in prison there on journalism-related charges.
CPJ called on Beijing to drop all parole conditions imposed on Gao Yu
and to remove a restriction prohibiting her from talking to reporters.
CPJ has repeatedly called for Gao Yu’s release and intensified its
efforts recently in light of her deteriorating health from a heart
condition. Chinese officials nevertheless forced her to serve all but
nine months of a six-year sentence for reporting on Chinese political
affairs for Mirror Monthly, a Hong Kong magazine. Gao Yu was first
imprisoned by the Chinese government for her journalistic work in 1989,
when she was the deputy editor of Economics Weekly, a newspaper which
supported the Tiananmen Square democracy movement. When the movement was
crushed by Chinese forces in June 1989, authorities closed the newspaper
and imprisoned Gao Yu for 15 months for her involvement in the democracy
movement.
“Gao Yu is a respected writer who could easily have prospered by serving
the interests of the Communist party,” said A. Lin Neumann, CPJ’s Asia
program coordinator. “Instead, she chose to follow her commitment to
journalism and wound up paying a heavy price.”
Gao Yu was arrested again in October 1993 on the eve of her departure
for New York to accept a one-year fellowship at Columbia University’s
Graduate School of Journalism. She was charged with “providing state
secrets to parties outside the borders” in secret trial in November 1994
in actions that were widely seen as a warning to Chinese journalists
against reporting on sensitive topics. In her final trial testimony, Gao
Yu reportedly told the court, “I feel no shame. I’ve upheld the
country’s best interests with my pen. You have shamed our country.” Gao
Yu has been honored by international press freedom organizations and was
the first recipient, in 1997, of the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press
Freedom Prize.
Upon Gao Yu’s release, CPJ urged the Chinese government to allow her to
travel freely and take up her fellowship at Columbia University, if she
so desires. CPJ noted that unlike some prominent political prisoners who
were freed, Gao was not summarily ejected from the country as a
condition of her release.
“Coming two weeks in advance of the scheduled visit to Beijing of
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, the release of Gao Yu seems
timed as a nod toward human rights concerns,” said CPJ Executive
Director Ann K. Cooper. “But it will take a lot more than just this
gesture to free the Chinese press.”
In recent months, CPJ has protested the expulsion of two foreign
correspondents from China and the sentencing of Internet entrepreneur
Lin Hai in Shanghai to two years in prison for providing e-mail
addresses to an on-line magazine. The Chinese government has increased
censorship pressures, especially in southern China: Two newspapers and
two magazines have either been suspended or had their editors dismissed
in the last two months for violating state censorship guidelines. In
addition, CPJ has documented the continued imprisonment of at least 11
journalists, while all other media outlets in the country face strict
Communist Party control over the reporting of political and economic
stories.
“The fact that things have not really changed for the better for China’s
journalists makes Gao Yu more relevant than ever,” said Cooper. “She is
a standard bearer for a free press in Asia.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists is a nonprofit, independent
organization based in New York that works to safeguard press freedom
around the world.
