Journalists Imprisoned in 2017 - Hu Yazhu
| Publisher | Committee to Protect Journalists |
| Publication Date | 31 December 2017 |
| Cite as | Committee to Protect Journalists, Journalists Imprisoned in 2017 - Hu Yazhu, 31 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a5c93c84.html [accessed 5 June 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Nanfang Daily | Imprisoned in China | June 21, 2013
| Job: | Print reporter |
| Medium: | |
| Beats Covered: | Corruption |
| Gender: | Male |
| Local or Foreign: | Local |
| Freelance: | No |
| Charge: | Retaliatory |
| Length of Sentence: | 10+ years |
| Reported Health Problems: | No |
The Shaoguan People's Procuratorate, a state legal body, issued a statement in June 2013 that said Hu and Liu Wei'an had been arrested in Guangdong province after confessing to accepting bribes while covering events in the northern city of Shaoguan.
Hu and Liu were sentenced to 13 years and 14 years in prison respectively in June 2014 for accepting bribes and for extortion, according to Shaoguan Daily, a government-run newspaper.
Hu, a staff reporter for the official Guangdong Communist Party newspaper Nanfang Daily, and Liu, a freelance writer, had both written articles published in 2011 in Nanfang Daily and on news websites about a dispute involving the illegal extraction of rare minerals in Shaoguan, according to news reports.
The prosecutors' statement said Hu and Liu accepted 493,000 yuan (about US$82,200) in bribes. The pair were stripped of their press cards and banned from journalism for life, according to the state-run paper China Daily.
Users on Weibo, China's microblog service, said they suspected the reporters' arrests were in retaliation for their reports that exposed problems in the government and judiciary.
Hu was being held in Tiebei Prison in Changchun city, Jilin province, as of late 2017. Hu's wife Zhan Ying told CPJ that she has not been able to visit her husband in prison for two years due to the distance of the prison from her home. CPJ was not able to determine the state of Hu's health as of late 2017.
