Wednesday, 17 December 2008

Reporter who went missing for 2 weeks held by police

A Beijing-based journalist who disappeared two weeks ago during an investigation in Taiyuan , Shanxi province , was being held in police custody yesterday in Hebei on suspicion of taking bribes.

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Guanyu said...

Reporter who went missing for 2 weeks held by police

Zhuang Pinghui
16 December 2008

A Beijing-based journalist who disappeared two weeks ago during an investigation in Taiyuan , Shanxi province , was being held in police custody yesterday in Hebei on suspicion of taking bribes.

Guan Jian , 49, chief reporter for the Networking News, a weekly published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was sent to Taiyuan at the end of last month to investigate a suspicious property deal.

He has not been in contact with his newspaper or his family since December 1, according to Networking News chief editor Ren Pengfei.

Guan’s case comes just one week after the arrest of Li Min, a reporter from China Central Television seized from her home in Beijing by Taiyuan procurators who claimed she had taken bribes.

Guan’s disappearance had triggered widespread media attention, with editorials claiming it was a case of reporters being manhandled while investigating corruption.

The Networking News published a statement on its website yesterday saying police from Zhangjiakou, in Hebei, had used Guan’s mobile phone to notify his family that he was in custody.

Citing a Taiyuan police source, the statement said Zhangjiakou police had notified Guan’s family to take money and medicine to the Zhangjiakou Public Security Bureau’s Economic Crimes Investigation Department. Asked why Guan’s family and workplace were not notified about the detention, the police said it was for the sake of the investigation, the statement said.

But police refused to specify why Guan was detained.

A brief report from Xinhua said he was seized “over bribery allegations”.

The Networking News also released footage from surveillance cameras in a budget hotel showing Guan being taken away on December 1. A man sat on a sofa across from Guan in the lobby and left while making a phone call. He returned with four men, who escorted Guan out of the hotel and pushed him into a car.

Mr. Ren said Guan was in Taiyuan for about a month to investigate the property company and returned to the city for additional reporting on alleged tax evasion by the same firm.

He said the company’s legal representative was the deputy director of a county-level people’s congress, but refused to give further details.

Guan’s son, Guan Yufei , went to his father’s home in Taiyuan to search for him on December 6. He found his notebook, camera and identity card.

He obtained his father’s telephone records and found that the last calls were made to two friends who had tipped him off about the property company and arranged to meet him at a hotel lobby on December 1.

The Beijing News report said the son had filed a missing person’s report with police.