The Right Honourable Mr Wang Xudong
Minister of Information Industry
Beijing, People’s Republic of China
c/o H.E. Zhao Jinjun, Ambassador to France
chinaemb_fr@mfa.gov.cn

31 January 2006

Dear Minister,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 102 countries, to express our serious concern at the jailing of journalist Li Changqing for providing "alarmist information" to an overseas website.

According to reports, on 24 January Mr Li, a journalist with the Fuzhou Daily, was jailed for three years by a court in Fuzhou for "spreading false and alarmist information". The charges related to an article Mr Li published on the banned US-based website Boxun News exposing an outbreak of dengue fever in Fujian province before the authorities officially announced it.

Mr Li was previously detained in early 2005 after supporting whistleblower Huang Jingao. Mr Huang was sentenced to life in prison in November 2005 on corruption charges after he publicly exposed official misconduct in a letter to the People’s Daily newspaper.

We are seriously concerned at the government’s continuing campaign to censor news and silence undesirable views on the internet: up to 86 other journalists and Internet-users are reportedly detained in China, more than in any other country in the world. What makes the jailing of Mr Li even more heinous, is that his disclosure of the outbreak of dengue fever was clearly in the public interest.

We respectfully remind you that the jailing of Mr Li constitutes a clear breach of his right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by numerous international conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the Declaration states: ’Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.’

We respectfully call on you to do everything possible to ensure that Mr Li and all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression are immediately released from jail and that all criminal charges against them are dropped. We urge you to take all necessary steps to ensure that in future your country fully observes international standards of freedom of expression.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin O’Reilly
President
World Association of Newspapers

George Brock
President
World Editors Forum

cc : Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations
Mr Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General, UNESCO

WAN is the global organization for the newspaper industry, with formal representative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The organization groups 18,000 newspapers in 102 countries, 11 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups. WAN is non-governmental and non-profit.