2014-11-24
Pedestrians and pro-democracy activists walk past tents at a protest site in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district, Nov. 24, 2014.
AFP
A journalist on a newspaper controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party has been fired after he spoke out in support of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central pro-democracy movement.
Wang Yafeng, who wrote editorials for Communist Party mouthpiece the Jiaxing Daily in the eastern province of Zhejiang, lost his job after sending out tweets highly critical of state media’s line on the Hong Kong protests on his personal microblog account.
“People who, without understanding the situation, launch their invective at Hong Kong’s citizens’ protest deserve to spend the rest of their lives as slaves,” Wang tweeted last week.
His tweet was quickly deleted, but not before he was reported by large numbers of pro-government paid commentators known as the “50-cent” brigade, Hong Kong’s English-language South China Morning Post reported.
Wang also tweeted that “to follow the party is to go down a road of no return.”
According to a former colleague, Wang had kept a low profile since joining the paper four years ago, but had been fired for “crossing a red line.”
“We have already terminated his employment contract,” the employee, who declined to be identified, told RFA on Monday. “He made some inappropriate comments on his verified microblog account.”
“You can read about this yourself in Chinese media reports; the reason for it is explained very clearly,” the employee said.
A second member of the editorial staff at the Jiaxing Daily who also asked to remain anonymous said they weren’t surprised by the response.
“You probably don’t understand this there in Hong Kong, but here in China, there are some things that it’s not permissible to say,” the employee said.
Occupy Central
Hong Kong’s Occupy Central protests, also known as the Umbrella Movement after protesters used umbrellas to protect themselves from tear-gas during Sept. 28 clashes, have taken over stretches of major highways in protest at China’s plans for electoral reform in the territory.
China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), ruled on Aug. 31 that while all five million of Hong Kong’s voters can cast ballots in elections scheduled for 2017 for Hong Kong’s chief executive, they will only be able to choose between two or three candidates preselected by Beijing.
