Journo's fingers chopped off

2005-05-21 09:01

Beijing - Chinese newspapers and internet commentators on Saturday expressed indignation after attackers chopped off and fled with two fingers of a daily newspaper reporter in southern Guangdong province.

Wen Chong, manager of the Zhongshan city bureau of the Southern Metropolitan News, was attacked on Wednesday at his home, local media reported.

He had written about the Sun Yee On triad organised crime group, many of whose members are active in southern China. Wen had also published a report on physical attacks against other journalists from his paper.

"By chopping off the fingers which Wen Chong used to hold his pen, the criminals showed they were motivated by revenge and wanted to issue a warning," commented the Beijing Youth Daily.

Xin Kuai Bao, a daily in the provincial capital Guangzhou, noted that eight journalists working from the city had been beaten during the second half of 2004.

Some writers on the Sohu.com chat room denounced the inaction of corrupt police.

The Southern Metropolitan News, Wen's newspaper, has distinguished itself on several occasions in recent years by publishing sensitive information.

Its former chief editor, Cheng Yizhong, was dismissed and imprisoned for five months after an article on the beating death of a detained migrant, and revelation of the emergence two years ago in Guangdong of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a lung disease affecting humans.

Those articles helped him win the Unesco/Guillermo Cano 2005 World Press Freedom Prize earlier this month.

- AP