The FCCC is alarmed and deeply concerned by reports that Xin Jiang, a Chinese news assistant employed by the Japanese newspaper Nikkei, has been detained on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” after having been held incommunicado by police for nearly two weeks.
The authorities have produced no evidence that Ms. Xin had done anything other than her job as an assistant to a foreign correspondent. Reports that her detention was connected with an interview she had conducted with human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, himself now under arrest, raise the disturbing possibility that she is being punished for the routine discharge of her professional duty on behalf of her employer.
This would be a gross violation of Chinese government rules governing foreign correspondents, which expressly permit them to interview anybody who consents to be interviewed. The FCCC calls on the authorities to present evidence that Ms. Xin has broken the law or, in the absence of such evidence, to release her immediately.
The FCCC board