Chinese magazine editor known for investigative reporting removed from post

The Associated PressPublished: January 4, 2007

BEIJING: The editor of a state-run Chinese magazine, known for its investigation of land grab scandals and other corruption cases, said Thursday he was dismissed for making his publication too critical of the government.

Huang Liangtian was told Sunday that he was no longer editor-in-chief of Baixing, or People, a monthly magazine published by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Huang said that during his two years at Baixing he turned the magazine "from a publication about agricultural products that only farmers read into one that addressed real issues with honesty."

"Our main readers became intellectuals who were concerned about the future and the reform of China," he said. He said he was proud of hiring writers who questioned government policy in their writing.

Huang was told that his dismissal was a routine editorial shuffle but he said the real reason was the magazine's reporting on sensitive issues.

China often gives conflicting signals regarding the freedom of journalists to do their jobs.

This week the government relaxed decades-old restrictions on foreign reporters, giving foreign media greater freedom to travel and report ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

However, authorities continue to use vaguely worded state secrecy and subversion charges to suppress criticism of the ruling Communist Party. Journalist advocacy groups report at least 50 reporters imprisoned in China.

Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday condemned Huang's dismissal, saying it showed that China's media remained under strict government surveillance.

An official with China's Agriculture Magazine Press who would give only his surname, Li, denied that Huang was dismissed because of the way he ran the magazine.

He said Huang's new posting was as the editor-in-chief of the Agricultural Products Market Magazine, and called it a "routine rotation of editorial staff."

Li said it was not a demotion but Huang disagreed.

"I am not a journalist anymore because the so-called magazine I've been transferred to has nothing to do with news," said Huang, who had worked as a journalist for 20 years, starting with the Farmer's Daily. "Chinese media belongs to the government and the party."

Over the last few months, Baixing has reported on villager complaints of unfair compensation following government land seizures in the eastern province of Jiangsu and central province of Henan.

Last September, Baixing's Web site was temporarily shut down, apparently for posting accounts of the beating death of a villager involved in a dispute with developers in Jiangsu.
Huang said at the time that he had been warned by the Jiangsu government to take the material off the site or face a shut down but he refused.