Jail, thousands in fine for SARS whistleblowers

China has sentenced the manager and an editor of an outspoken newspaper to more than a decade in prison and arrested another editor in what ...

China has sentenced the manager and an editor of an outspoken newspaper to more than a decade in prison and arrested another editor in what critics said may be retaliation for sensational reports on worker’s rights and SARS.

Yu Huafeng, former manager of the popular Southern Metropolis Daily in the southern city of Guangzhou, was sentenced by a city district court late last week to 12 years in prison for graft, including embezzling 100,000 yuan ($12,000), state media said.

Li Minying, the paper’s former Editor-in-Chief, was handed 11 years in prison, also for corruption, including taking 970,000 yuan in bribes, the Xinhua news agency said.

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Southern Metropolis, part of a family of progressive papers based in Guangdong, broke news in December of a suspected SARS case that was later confirmed by the government. It also was first with news last year of the death in police custody of designer Sun Zhigang, a case that sparked widespread popular outrage and led to reform of the murky detention system used to control migrant workers.

Government critics said the sentences appeared to be less about graft than warning the media not to stray out of line.

In what appeared to be a widening of the crackdown, police on Friday arrested another editor of the paper, Cheng Yizhong, said a lawyer familiar with the cases.

Cheng was also editor of Beijing News, a new paper that is a joint venture between the Southern Metropolis’ parent company and the Guangming Group, a publishing firm that adheres strongly to the views of the ruling Communist Party.