At this Holiday Season, the news for supporters of imprisoned Chinese journalist Zhao Yan, and they are legion, is most certainly bad, as you will read in The New York Times article below. Regular readers of these pages know well my concern for the life and liberty of fellow journalist Zhao Yan.
You will also probably remember the special series on the case written by journalism students at Beijing Foreign Language University on their newsblog WOW. In many ways the story of Zhao Yan is central to any realistic look at the future of foreign media in China. By negotiated agreement, one of China's WTO commitments is to an unfettered foreign media with full-fledged door-step or kiosk presence--which basically means foreign ownership of plant, content and distribution--in about two years. Many, many people believe that China will renege. As both a journalist and a teacher of journalism, I have intense interest in all of it.
My interest in Zhao Yan is also personal, though I've never met him. Everything I learn about him tells me he is a man to respect and admire; in other words, a lot of other people I respect and admire do know Mr. Zhao.
The proof of the pudding is the photograph directly below, in which Bill Keller, the new boss of the old gray lady, proudly hangs a picture of Zhao Yan upon Zhao being recently honored by Reporters Without Borders. I have had the priceless photo for some time now, but I did not want to post it and add any fuel to a potential fire. Potential is no longer an operable concern.
China Indicts Times Researcher, Saying He Disclosed State Secrets
By JIM YARDLEY Published: December 24, 2005
BEIJING, Dec. 23 - A Chinese researcher for The New York Times was indicted Friday on charges of disclosing state secrets to the newspaper and on a lesser charge of fraud, a move that should send the case to trial within six weeks, his lawyer said.
The researcher, Zhao Yan, 43, who worked in the paper's Beijing bureau, has spent 15 months in prison without a hearing. The formal indictment is significant because such a move on charges relating to state secrets is usually tantamount to conviction in China.
Mr. Zhao, who has denied the charges, could face a minimum of 10 years in prison.
"For Zhao Yan's colleagues, family and friends, this is deeply disheartening," said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. Mr. Keller lobbied the Foreign Ministry on Mr. Zhao's behalf in October during a visit to Beijing.
"We've seen no evidence whatsoever that he is guilty of anything but honest journalism," Mr. Keller added.
Mr. Zhao's arrest is directly linked to an article in The Times on Sept. 7, 2004, that disclosed that the former president, Jiang Zemin, had unexpectedly offered to resign his last leadership post as chief of the military. The ruling Communist Party is acutely sensitive to any reporting on the secretive inner workings of the leadership.
