Fired Editors of Chinese Journal Call for Free Speech in Public Letter

By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
February 18, 2006

LANZHOU, China, Feb. 17 — The controversy over news media censorship in China continued Friday as two editors who had been removed from a feisty weekly journal, Freezing Point, issued a public letter lashing out at propaganda officials and calling for free speech.

Meanwhile on Friday, a group of prominent scholars and lawyers who had contributed articles to the journal wrote an open letter to President Hu Jintao, denouncing the crackdown against Freezing Point as a violation of the Chinese Constitution and of the promise made by top leaders for a consistent rule of law.

The two broadsides came as intellectuals and some former party officials have sharply criticized the recent increase in censorship of the news media. Propaganda officials, who shut down Freezing Point last month, announced this week that the publication would restart March 1, but without the top two editors.

In their public letter, which was released in Beijing, the two editors, Li Datong and Lu Yuegang, defended their stewardship of Freezing Point and made an ardent plea for freedom of expression, saying it was the role of the news media to investigate "unfairness in the world."

"What do the people want?" they wrote. "The freedom of publication and expression granted by the Constitution."

As for the plan to resume publication of Freezing Point, the editors added: "The newspaper run by the taxpayers' money is forced to publish the trash of the propaganda officials. This is a crime and an abuse of power."

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