Here is the second case reported this week of legal action taken by a journalist in China against a government official or agency. From the South China Morning Post, via Asia Media:
A senior Beijing-based journalist has taken the Qitaihe municipal government Office of Law and Order and its director, Liu Mingying, to court in what is believed to be the first defamation case against a local government agency on the mainland.
Sheng Xueyou, 42, was a freelance reporter at the time he wrote a series of stories for the Beijing-based West Times in August regarding a coalmine ownership dispute in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang province, and the ensuing ruling by a local arbitration committee that Mr Liu was heading.
In his news reports, Sheng accused the arbitration committee and Mr Liu of handing down the same rulings on several occasions in favour of the arbitration applicants in a complicated transfer of coalmine ownership. [Full text]
– See also “Court rejects writer’s bid to overturn ban on prison book’s reprint” about journalist Dai Huang’s lawsuit against the General Administration of Press and Publication.
