“I am grateful to everyone for their concern. I will apologize to the conference organizers,” Beijing-based New York Times researcher and Chinese investigative reporter Zhao Yan said in a telephone interview from his home in Beijing.

Chinese authorities didn’t try to interfere with his appearance in Hong Kong, he said.

Zhao, who was initially accused of “revealing state secrets” and then jailed for fraud after The New York Times correctly predicted the retirement of then president Jiang Zemin, was released from prison in September 2007.

Picture source is here.

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A Beijing-based news researcher for The New York Times and cutting-edge Chinese investigative reporter has called for greater press freedom in China following his release from a three-year jail term.

“There is not enough press freedom now,” Zhao Yan, who was jailed for fraud after charges of “revealing state secrets” were withdrawn, told RFA’s Mandarin service. “A law enshrining such freedoms should be enacted,” he told reporter Xin Yu shortly before leaving for the United States.

Zhao was initially accused of “revealing state secrets” after The New York Times correctly predicted the retirement of then president Jiang Zemin. That charge was dropped but he was convicted of defrauding an official of U.S. $2,500, which he denies. He was released from prison in September 2007 but hasn’t spoken publicly until now. He was fired from a previous reporting job with the magazine China Reform for reporting on a grassroots campaign against a reservoir project in northern China.

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Zhao Yan (˵µÂ≤©), the Chinese journalist jailed in 2004 while working for the New York Times is expected to be freed this weekend. Zhao was charged for revealing state secrets after a Times report was published that correctly predicted the retirement of Jiang Zemin (ʱüÊ≥ΩÊ∞ë) as president and Communist Party chief…

Father Paul Xiao Zejiang (ËÇñÊ≥Ωʱü) has been ordained coadjutor bishop of Guizhou diocese, the first ordination approved by both Beijing and the Vatican after the Pope published a letter to Chinese Catholics on June 30…

David Lancashire, a Canadian hired by The Associated Press in 1956 to become the first North American reporter to defy a U.S. travel ban and report from mainland China after the 1949 revolution, has died at the age of 76 of a heart attack. [Full Text]

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Journalist and former New York Times researcher Zhao Yan is slated to be released from prison this weekend, according to the New York Times:

Prison officials in Beijing told Mr. Zhao’s older sister that he would be released before 9 a.m. on Saturday. The sister, Zhao Kun, said today that her brother, who suffered health problems during his incarceration, planned to undergo a physical examination in Beijing before leaving the city to attend a family wedding in northeastern China.

(...)
Read the rest of China to Free Jailed New York Times Employee – Jim Yardley (Updated) (67 words)

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China, which jails more journalists than any other nation, is challenging the view that information on the Internet is impossible to control, and the implications for press freedom could be far-reaching, a New York-based rights group said.

At least 31 journalists are behind bars in China, making it the world’s leading jailer of reporters for the eighth year in a row, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in its annual survey released Thursday.

Three out of four of the journalists were convicted under vague charges of subversion or revealing state secrets, and more than half were Internet journalists. [Full Text]

- Read the full CPJ report. Also, a comment on the report from Rebecca MacKinnon and CDT’s earlier post: “Chinese Court Rejects Appeal by Researcher for The Times.”

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Press freedom got a new — but temporary — boost in China yesterday when the government announced that it would allow foreign journalists greater autonomy in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Foreign journalists usually need permission from Chinese authorities before conducting interviews and traveling anywhere outside the city where they are based. While the rules are only loosely enforced, authorities have used them selectively to clamp down on journalists covering sensitive stories.

…The government is not relaxing restrictions on Chinese journalists. Reflecting this double standard, a Chinese court yesterday upheld a three-year prison sentence for Zhao Yan, a researcher with The New York Times. Zhao was convicted of fraud after he reported on official corruption and peasant rights before he joined the Times.
[Full Text]

Read CDT’s eariler post: “Chinese Court Rejects Appeal by Researcher for The Times.”

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A Beijing appeals court on Friday upheld a fraud conviction against a Chinese researcher for The New York Times in a ruling that means he will probably remain in prison until his three-year sentence ends next September.

The researcher, Zhao Yan, sought to overturn an August fraud conviction that stemmed from a period in 2001 when he worked as a reporter for a Chinese magazine. He has maintained his innocence, and his legal team has complained that the appeals court prohibited them from mounting a vigorous case. [Full Text]

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The High Court of Beijing has rejected a request by a jailed Chinese researcher for The New York Times to hold an open hearing on his appeal of his fraud conviction, a defense lawyer said today.

Instead, Guan Anping, the defense lawyer, said that prosecutors and the defense team would be limited to arguing the case through written filings, and that the High Court could rule on the appeal within two weeks.

Mr. Guan said court officials told him Thursday that he would be allowed to present written testimony from new witnesses or other new evidence.

The researcher, Zhao Yan, has maintained his innocence, and has repeatedly asked his defense team to petition the court for an open hearing, saying it is necessity for a fair review of the case. In the initial trial, Mr. Zhao’s lawyers were forbidden to question prosecution witnesses, and the lawyers had hoped for more leeway in the appeal.[Full Text]

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A Chinese researcher for The New York Times may appear in court as early as next week to appeal his conviction on a fraud charge, but his legal team is worried that it will be unable to call witnesses, submit evidence or provide him with adequate representation.

But the Beijing No. 2 People’s Intermediate Court convicted Mr. Zhao of a lesser, unrelated charge, accusing him of fraud at a time that predated his work at The Times, and sentenced him to three years in prison. He has already spent more than two years in detention and his release is currently scheduled for September 2007.

Mr. Zhao, who had maintained his innocence on both charges, appealed the fraud conviction on Sept. 4. He also reconfigured his legal team, keeping Mr. Guan but replacing his lead lawyer, Mo Shaoping, with a prominent defense lawyer, Zhang Sizhi. [Full Text]

- See CDT’s earlier posts on the case

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More than 50 leading scholars and rights campaigners from the United States, Europe, and Australia have issued a rare public protest of Chinese policies, sending an open letter to President Hu Jintao asking him to stop the harassment of human rights activists.

The Sept. 29 open letter posted on the Web site of the New York-based Human Rights Watch organization chiefly bore the signatures of some 40 well-known China scholars, including the Council on Foreign Relations’ Jerome Cohen, Harvard’s Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Yahuda of the London School of Economics.

“We note with concern the sharp increase in official retaliation against such advocates and their families through persistent harassment, banishment, detention, arrest and imprisonment,” the letter said. “We … write to urge your commitment to ensuring the civil rights of advocates for social justice.” [Full Text]

See also “Experts Press Chinese Leader to Halt Attacks on Dissenters” from the New York Times.

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Post tags: Chen Guangcheng, Gao Zhisheng, Hu Jia, Hu Jintao, Zhao Yan
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