CHINA WILL prosecute 10 journalists and dozens of officials over the three-month cover-up of a mining disaster that killed 35 people, state media said yesterday.
Mine bosses moved bodies, destroyed evidence and paid reporters 2.6 million yuan (€254,000) to conceal the disaster, the China Daily newspaper reported. They used threats and large pay-offs to keep relatives quiet, cremated bodies against the wishes of bereaved families and dumped earth to seal off the shaft, according to reports.
The high death toll at the illegal mine in Yuxian, in north China’s Hebei province, was particularly sensitive because it happened a few weeks before the Beijing Olympics, when the authorities were determined to present a positive image and local officials feared that any bad news from the area would damage their careers.
News finally broke 85 days after the July 14th, 2008, blast, which killed 34 miners and one rescuer. The state council – China’s cabinet – launched an investigation after details began to circulate on the internet.
The 10 journalists have not been named, but China Daily suggested they included Guan Jian from China Internet Weekly, who was detained last December and charged in April with taking bribes from Yuxian officials after the incident.
The prosecution said the Yuxian county government paid 250,000 yuan for two pages of “advertisements” and a “subscription fee” of 30,000 yuan. Both terms are often used euphemistically.
The practice of reporters taking hush money after accidents is so well known that people have pretended they work for newspapers so they can blackmail bosses. Last year two journalists and 26 people posing as journalists were accused of taking hundreds of thousands of yuan in bribes to cover up the death of a miner in Shanxi.
The 48 others facing trial include the mine owners, county chief, work safety officials and police officers, China Daily said.
News of the prosecutions comes days after a gas blast killed more than 100 workers in China’s worst mine disaster in almost two years. – (Guardian service)