Chinese Authorities Indict New York Times Researcher Zhao Yan

The New York Times reported on December 23 that Chinese authorities have indicted Zhao Yan, a researcher at its Beijing bureau, on charges of revealing state secrets and fraud. Agents from the Ministry of State Security detained Zhao on September 17, 2004, and authorities formally arrested him in October 2004 for "providing state secrets to foreigners." In June 2005, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) confirmed that on May 20 authorities had transferred his case to the Beijing procuratorate for prosecution both for providing state secrets to foreigners and for fraud.

According to the New York Times report, the indictment came on the last working day for the procuratorate to decide whether to go forward with the case under Chinese law. It also occured two weeks after Reporters Without Borders awarded Zhao its 2005 Fondation de France Prize.

The New York Times reported that a confidential Chinese state security document said that the key piece of evidence in the state secrets charge is a photocopy of a note handwritten by Zhao. Zhao wrote the note two months before the New York Times published a September 7, 2004 article revealing that former Chinese President Jiang Zemin had unexpectedly offered to resign his last leadership post as head of the military. The New York Times said the note "describes some jockeying between Mr. Jiang and Mr. Hu over military appointments," and that a reference to that jockeying appeared in the article. According to the New York Times, a central question is how state security agents obtained the photocopy. The original note remains in the New York Times' office in Beijing, suggesting either that agents entered the office without permission or enlisted someone to help them make a copy. The New York Times cited unnamed legal experts as saying that, in either instance, the note should be inadmissible under Chinese law.