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Alert

Journalist Shi Tao faces possible life sentence for posting Tiananmen document on website

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has voiced outrage over the charge of "illegally exposing state secrets abroad" that was brought against journalist and poet Shi Tao on 28 January 2005 for posting an official document relating to the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on a foreign website. Shi, who has been detained since November 2004, faces a sentence of between three years and life imprisonment if convicted.

The organisation said it was "absolutely scandalous" that China has imprisoned a journalist for trying to inform people around the world about Tiananmen at a moment when the European Union (EU) is considering lifting the arms embargo that was imposed after the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators. This shows the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party opposes any democratic opening, RSF said. The organisation plans to ask that Shi's case be raised at the next EU-China dialogue meeting, scheduled for 24 and 25 February in Luxembourg.

Shi worked for the daily "Dangdai Shang Bao" ("Contemporary Business News"), based in the southern province of Hunan. The charges against him were brought by the Office of the People's Prosecutor in Changsha, Hunan's capital. They relate to an official document and articles that Shi posted on foreign websites and discussion forums.

In April 2004, Shi sent the dissident online newspaper "Min Zhu Ton Xun" an internal note sent to his newspaper by the authorities warning journalists of the dangers of social destabilisation and risks linked to the return of certain dissidents to the country on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Shi used a pseudonym to post the document, but State Security Ministry agents identified him with the help of filters installed on the Chinese Internet. The ministry told the prosecutor the document was "Jue Mi" (top secret). Shi's lawyer, Thomas Guo, said Shi acknowledged sending the document, but disputed its confidential nature.

Guo visited Shi on 25 January and said the journalist was in good physical and mental condition. "The law on state secrets is not very clear. As a result, the interpretation of the concept of so-called secrets is vague. It is therefore very easy for the authorities to use this law against journalists who speak their mind," Guo explained.

Shi is currently being held in Changsha. He was arrested in Taiyuan, in the northeastern province of Shanxi, on 24 November. At the time of his arrest, the police told his wife, Wang Huan, not to tell anyone of their action, especially not the news media, or her husband would be mistreated.

In another development, dissident journalist Yang Tianshui was provisionally released on 25 January after being held for a month in Hangzhou, the capital of the southeastern province of Zhejiang (see IFEX alerts of 26 and 4 January 2005). Charged with "inciting subversion of the state", he must remain available to the authorities and live at the home of his sister, who has assumed responsibility for him.

RSF called for the lifting of all charges against Yang, whose articles have been posted on the Internet and in the Chinese-language edition of "Epoch Times", a daily newspaper published abroad. He recently wrote about the torture of human rights activists and the protection that authorities have granted certain criminals.