08.20.2014
CHINA
While welcoming freelance journalist Xiang Nanfu’s release, announced yesterday, Reporters Without Borders calls on the European Council to sanction state-owned CCTV13’s executives for violating his right to a fair trial by broadcasting his forced confession in order to incriminate him.
Xiang wrote about land confiscation and organ trafficking for the US-based Chinese-language news website Boxun. When he was arrested on 3 May, the police accused him of receiving sums of from abroad, and his articles were said to have undermined China’s image.
On 13 May, ten days after his arrest, he was shown on CCTV13 confessing to having “smeared the Party and the government.”
Announced his release yesterday, the police said he was being freed on parole “because of his poor health and above all because of a relatively good attitude in pleading guilty.”