China Stops Journalist’s Arrest after Public Outcry
After putting investigative journalist Qiu Ziming on the Wanted List for a series of articles he wrote revealing insider trading at a Shenzhen manufacturing company. From AFP:
Qiu Ziming had become a cause celebre after his investigative reports on alleged improprieties by a listed company landed him in a nationwide police most-wanted database on suspicion of slander.
Qiu, 28, a reporter with the Economic Observer financial weekly, has been on the run for days after police in Zhejiang province put out an arrest notice.
But in a sudden about-face, the Zhejiang government said Thursday that police in the province’s Suichang county who initiated the arrest order had been told to rescind it.
“The (provincial) Public Security Bureau has ordered the Suichang Public Security Bureau to withdraw the Qiu Ziming criminal detention decision and apologise to him,” a notice on the provincial news website said.
It said the detention order “did not meet statutory requirements”.
The Economic Observer issued a statement about the decision, available here.
Qiu’s articles that were at issue in the case can be found at the links below (all in Chinese):
