(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Henan province (central China) Governor Li Keqiang, RSF protested the firing of Ma Yunlong, vice-editor-in-chief of “Dahe Bao” daily, after the publication of two articles criticising the behaviour of some provincial officials. The organisation expressed concern over the strengthening of the ideological campaign called “Marxist journalism”. RSF asked the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Henan province (central China) Governor Li Keqiang, RSF protested the firing of Ma Yunlong, vice-editor-in-chief of “Dahe Bao” daily, after the publication of two articles criticising the behaviour of some provincial officials. The organisation expressed concern over the strengthening of the ideological campaign called “Marxist journalism”. RSF asked the governor to do everything in his power to reinstate Ma Yunlong and stop this campaign, which is contrary to pluralist information. “Firing a journalist for doing his job is a deliberate attack on press freedom,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. “The institution of re-education classes in ‘Marxist journalism’ is a new attempt by authorities to reduce the work of journalists to mere propaganda for the Communist Party.”
According to information obtained by RSF, Ma Yunlong was fired during the week of 11 June 2001, after the provincial propaganda department published a report naming him responsible for the publication of two articles criticising the behaviour of Henan province officials. In March, “Dahe Bao”, which has a daily circulation of 700,000 copies, published an article titled “Dream Dolls Flood Medical Insurance Conference”. The article described how pharmaceutical laboratories paid women to influence the decisions of provincial medical department officials using sexual favours. The second article criticised, titled “Foreign Investors Complain about Bad Administration,” discussed businessmen’s criticism of the Zhoukou city administration, which they considered to be corrupt and inefficient. Ma Guoqiang, editor-in-chief of the newspaper was severely criticised by the propaganda department.
In addition, the Henan province propaganda department began an important campaign of “ideological re-education,” called “Marxist journalism”. Nearly a thousand journalists are taking this re-education course for three months, and will be tested at the end of the course. The authorities stated that those failing the test would be fired.
