Newspaper editor's bind not for SARS
( 2004-01-13 12:00) (China Daily)
A press officer with South China's Guangdong Province on Monday said that a
person-in-charge of a local newspaper was questioned because one of its staff
was involved in "a bribery case," rather than for other reasons as reported by
some overseas media.
The officer from the provincial government's Information Office, whose name
was not revealed, said that a person-in-charge of the Southern Metropolitan
Daily (Nanfang Dushi Bao) had been questioned by the local Guangzhou People's
Procuratorate.
Meanwhile, the staff allegedly involved in a bribery case, surnamed Yu, had
already been under surveillance of residence since the end of last year. The
case is still under investigation.
"The other reasons as speculated by some overseas media why the
person-in-charge was questioned were groundless," said the press officer.
The AFP reported on January 2 that a reporter and a duty news editor had been
investigated for the in-depth report of a new SARS case found in Guangzhou, from
where the deadly lung disease spread across the country last spring.
A new SARS case was spotted in the city at the end of last year, followed by
two suspected cases so far. With millions expected to take to the road for the
upcoming Spring Festival, the latest SARS cases have caused concern among the
Chinese who still have a fresh memory of what happened a year ago.
China was the country worst affected by the SARS epidemic last year, with
5,327 people infected and 349 killed.
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