{"id":6757,"date":"2016-03-19T09:29:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-19T13:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=6757"},"modified":"2016-03-20T15:24:27","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T19:24:27","slug":"chinese-journalist-disappears-while-trying-to-fly-to-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/chinese-journalist-disappears-while-trying-to-fly-to-hong-kong","title":{"rendered":"Chinese journalist ‘disappears’ while trying to fly to Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

A plane at Beijing airport. It is not known if Jia Jia boarded his flight to Hong Kong. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon\/Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

A Chinese journalist has reportedly disappeared while attempting to fly from Beijing to Hong Kong, stoking fears he has become the latest victim of a widening Communist party crackdown on dissent.Jia Jia, a politically engaged 35-year-old reporter with more than 84,000 Twitter followers, was last heard from at about 8pm on Tuesday, according to a report in Hong Kong\u2019s pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.<\/p>\n

The journalist\u2019s wife, who was not named, told the newspaper he had called her to say he had cleared customs at Beijing airport and was preparing to board a flight that was scheduled to arrive in the former British colony at 11.30pm.<\/p>\n

However, Jia was not heard from again and failed to turn up to a planned lunch in Hong Kong the following day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not know if he was taken from the airport lounge or from the plane or in Hong Kong,\u201d one friend, who was also not named, was quoted as saying by the Apple Daily.<\/p>\n

Multiple reports from activist groups and Hong Kong media suggested there was a connection between Jia\u2019s apparent detention and an explosive letter calling for the resignation of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, which was published early this month on Wujie News, a website with ties to the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

The letter, which was subsequently deleted, accused Xi of jeopardising the Communist party\u2019s future by nurturing a personality cult around himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cComrade Xi Jinping, we have no choice but to point out that, precisely due to your gathering of all power into your own hands and making decisions directly, we are now facing unprecedented problems and crises in all political, economic, ideological, and cultural spheres,\u201d it said, according to a translation by China Digital Times, a website run by the University of California at Berkeley.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Your actions] make those of us who experienced the Cultural Revolution unable to not secretly worry,\u201d the letter added. \u201cOur party, country, and people cannot bear another decade of calamity!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jia is friends with Ouyang Hongliang, Wujie News\u2019s chief executive, the Hong Kong Free Press website reported, citing local media reports.<\/p>\n

Zhou Fengsuo, a human rights activist who knows Jia, said that not long before his disappearance the journalist had told friends he feared he was being investigated and could be detained.<\/p>\n

The US-based activist said supporters feared Jia had become the latest victim of what activists say is the worst crackdown on government opponents in China since the roundup of pro-democracy protesters after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecently Xi is paranoid,\u201d Zhou said. \u201cHe is going after anyone who is in his way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a tweet sent three days before his disappearance, Jia expressed concern at the deteriorating political situation in China, which has seen academics, journalists, artists and activists face pressure or even jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiterature must intervene in politics until politics doesn\u2019t intervene in literature any more,\u201d Jia wrote. \u201cThe arts must intervene in politics until politics doesn\u2019t intervene in the arts any more. Journalism must intervene in politics until politics doesn\u2019t intervene in journalism any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/mar\/17\/chinese-journalist-disappears-fly-beijing-hong-kong<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Chinese journalist has reportedly disa … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,110],"tags":[1476,1580,1578,1577,103],"views":4845,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6759,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757\/revisions\/6759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}