Communist China has jailed the largest number of journalists in the world

On August 15th, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) demanded that the CCP authorities should immediately release Huibin Mao, a journalist covering the Tangshan assault incident, withdraw all charges against him, and allow the media to freely report on social issues.

According to the reports provided by Mao’s wife Huidi Wang to the CPJ, Mao was arrested at home in Hengshui City at 10 o’clock on August 9th.

On July 17th, Mao published an article on social media as a freelance reporter, asking about the whereabouts of the victims of the a June 2022 attack in the Tangshan city, in which a group of men assaulted four women who rejected their sexual advances at a barbeque restaurant. On July 18th, he uploaded a video about the assault on the blog.

CPJ’s records show that journalists who went to Tangshan to report this incident in Tangshan after June were hampered by the local government, including harassment and detention by Tangshan police.

Tangshan police charged Mao with “provocation” and went to Hengshui to arrest him. Mao is currently detained in Tangshan No. 1 detention center and could be sentenced to 5 years in prison under criminal law.His wife Wang told the CPJ that Mao’s only connection with Tangshan City was his article about the Tangshan beating incident. She drove six hours from Hengshui to the Tangshan Public Security Bureau on the night of August 11th to inquire about her husband’s whereabouts, but she was told that she did not have the right to know.

Wang told the CPJ that “The police warned me not to publish any information about my husband’s arrest on the Internet. They said it would affect the case, my husband and me even our children. “I think they are threatening me. ” As a journalist, Mao knows how to know the facts and verify his source. He also has the right to publish what he believes to be the truth. The authorities have no right to arrest him with false accusations.“Police in Tangshan must release Mao Huibin immediately and drop all charges against him,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg, in New York. “Journalists have the right to report on news stories that are important to the Chinese public.”

According to the latest prison statistics of the CPJ, as of December 1st, 2021, at least 50 journalists have been imprisoned in Communist China. For the third year in a row, China has jailed the most journalists in the world.