CHINA:A Communist Party chief has been vilified in Chinese media for sending police 1,000km to subpoena a reporter for libel, writes Clifford Coonan.
A major debate over press freedom, the abuse of official power and exactly what qualifies as negative reporting in China has emerged after a local Communist Party chief sent police officers 1,000km (621 miles) to Beijing to barge into a magazine office and subpoena a reporter for libel over a story that criticised him.
In times past, this would have been fairly standard practice.Instead, Zhang Zhiguo, party chief of Xifeng county in the northeastern province of Liaoning, has been vilified in the official media, including the influential China Youth Daily, for dispatching police officers to subpoena Zhu Wenna, a reporter for Faren Magazine.
Chinese media is tightly controlled by the government but the press has become more daring on occasion, particularly when it comes to issues such as corruption - the senior leadership has repeatedly stated that stamping out graft is one of its prime goals.
Zhu ran a story on January 1st about a petrol-station owner who wrote a satirical mobile phone text message alleging corruption when her property was demolished to make way for a shopping mall and she received only meagre compensation. Mr Zhang had the petrol-station owner arrested, Zhu reported.
The party chief's reaction was to have the reporter subpoenaed for libel.
The mobile phone has brought about a form of grassroots democracy in China. With little recourse to law, people who feel they have been wronged by officials will often send group mailings of satirical text messages, and the response can be swift and harsh from the official side.
But the sheer volume of positive responses to the text messages can sometimes force the cadres to back down. Mr Zhang's decision to go after the reporter looks like a brave one in light of recent reactions to some of these text messages.
Under Chinese law, libel is a civil offence, not a crime, and is outside the realm of the police unless it "seriously jeopardises social order or national interests".
Some 14,000 people have left comments on an online forum on Sina.com, one of China's leading web portals, denouncing the cadre and demanding justice.
"Zhang was recklessly abusing his power when the 'negative report' riled him," wrote one anonymous contributor.
There were also many comments on www.people.com.cn, the website of the Communist Party's official organ, the People's Daily, accusing Mr Zhang of behaving like a warlord or a "local emperor".
