In the South China Morning Post, Verna Yu profiles journalist Gao Yu, who was sentenced last month to seven years in prison for allegedly “leaking state secrets,” and talks about her work with former colleagues and professors:
Ironically, Gao has become the victim of the intensified ideological controls she has reported, political observers say. Gao’s articles have long ensured her a place under the watchful eyes of the authorities but after her release in 1999, her work was largely tolerated — until recently.
“This has to do with the deteriorating overall environment,” said Hu Ping, an exiled intellectual living in the US.
Hu said Gao’s jailing came amid a wave of crackdowns on liberal intellectuals and party elders, journalists, rights lawyers, NGOs and “big V” celebrity bloggers in the past two years.
Her former colleague Wang Juntao, who was also jailed after the Tiananmen crackdown, said Gao was aware of how dangerous her job was but accepted that this was a price to pay as an independent journalist under a one-party regime. [Source]
Read more about Gao Yu’s case, and press freedom in China, via CDT.
