A Beijing man who supplied information to a dissident-run US-based news Web site has been detained on charges he made up stories that disparaged the Chinese government, police announced yesterday.
Xiang Nanfu (向南夫) was accused of providing false stories about organ harvesting and live burials perpetrated by the Chinese government to Boxun.com, a police statement said, adding that he worked with the site to incite public dissatisfaction with the state.
New York-based Boxun.com, was founded in 2000 and is known for publicizing allegations of high-level Chinese corruption and human rights abuses. Access to the site is blocked in China.
Xiang, 62, was detained under a law against troublemaking, according to the police statement. Violators of this law are usually punished with fines, but can be given a prison sentence of up to five years.
Xiang was shown on the national state TV noon newscast confessing and expressing contrition.
“I have made up things that are not facts,” said Xiang, who was shown wearing the green vest worn by jail inmates. “My behavior has had a very bad impact. I realize that I have smeared the ruling [Chinese Communist] party [CCP] and the government.”
Boxun.com founder Watson Meng (孟維參) denied that the site had reported that organ harvesting or live burials had occurred, but said that the site did carry a report last month about petitioners who had made such allegations in front of the UN’s Beijing office.
“The authorities could have used some means to extort the public confession, although we do not know what means they have used,” Meng said by telephone from New York.
Meng said Xiang had backed up his reports with photographs and video footage and called him trustworthy. Meng said most of Xiang’s stories were about people who petitioned the government over mistreatment by authorities.
He rejected an allegation by police that Boxun paid Xiang “large amounts of US dollars” for the reports.
“In the past three years, Boxun did not pay him directly and he never sought payments from us, either,” Meng said.
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Meng said Xiang and other Boxun contributors have been harassed by police in the past.
“[Xiang] has insisted on exercising his rights to freedom of speech and freedom of press as granted by the constitution, and that’s respectable,” a statement by the site said. “We will provide assistance to Mr Xiang Nanfu to our best ability.”
Veteran activist Huang Qi (黃琦) said authorities regularly investigate his Web site, which documents efforts of petitioners and the government’s response.
Huang said volunteers who contribute to his site, 64Tianwang.com, which is blocked in China, have also been investigated.
In March, authorities detained several people who reported for Huang’s site about a self-immolation protest on Tiananmen Square.
Huang said most of those detained have been released, but added that his site demands “the immediate and unconditional release of all citizen journalists in the Chinese mainland, including one of our volunteers.”
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