A Chinese journalist broke the story of a health scandal on the sale of cooking oil dredged from gutters was stabbed to death on Monday. Li Xiang, 30, a reporter with Luoyang Television Station in Henan province, was knifed more than 10 times as he returned home from a karaoke session with friends, local reports said.
In the first sentence of its kind, a farmer from mainland has been jailed for three weeks after setting fire to a Chinese flag in Hong Kong. Zhu Rongchang, 74, from Jiangxi province, pleaded not guilty to flag desecration, arguing that he was exercising his right to free speech. He burned the flag in Golden Bauhinia Square in central Hong Kong on 22 July, in a protest against the Beijing government.
China‘s version of Pop Idol, Super Girl, has been suspended for one year by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). Despite attracting up to 400m viewers at its peak, reports suggest some officials saw the show as subversive, with audience voting allegedly mirroring Western-style democracy. However, the order from SARFT to the show’s broadcaster, Hunan TV, reportedly stated that the programme had often exceeded its allotted time slot.
A dissident writer who spent five years in a Chinese jail was released on Tuesday. Talking to Associated Press, Yang Maodong said he had been wrongly imprisoned and subjected to ill-treatment “beyond people’s imagination.” Yang said the charges of alleged illegal business activities for which he was jailed were trumped up and that his jailers only questioned him about his pro-democracy activities, not business matters. Yang was arrested in September 2006 and sentenced in November 2007. His prosecution is believed to relate to a publication entitled Shenyang Political Earthquake, which exposed government corruption in Shenyang, Liaoning province.