Reporters Without Borders Gives Zhao Yan 2005 Press Freedom Award

November 28, 2006

Reporters Without Borders awarded its 2005 Fondation de France Prize on December 7 to Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The New York Times. Zhao received the prize for being one of the "journalists who, through their work, attitude or principled stands, have shown a strong commitment to press freedom."

Reporters Without Borders awarded its 2005 Fondation de France Prize on December 7 to Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The New York Times. Zhao received the prize for being one of the "journalists who, through their work, attitude or principled stands, have shown a strong commitment to press freedom."

Agents from the Ministry of State Security (MSS) 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. By invoking several legal exceptions, authorities had already extended Zhao's pre-trial detention to seven months, the maximum allowed under Article 127 of the Criminal Procedure Law (CPL). Moreover, adding a new charge allowed them to invoke Article 128 of the CPL to further extend Zhao's period of "legal" pre-trial detention. On July 9, prosecutors returned the case to the MSS for another month of investigation, which some legal scholars interpret as an indication that the procuratorate does not consider the evidence submitted by investigative agencies as sufficient to issue an indictment. The MSS recommended to the procuratorate that Zhao be indicted, noting that he should receive a harsher sentence since he has neither confessed nor cooperated with the investigation.

During a regularly scheduled press conference on December 8, MFA spokesperson Qin Gang said "Zhao Yan is currently the subject of an investigation by China's judicial authorities. To award him with such a prize at this time, doesn't that constitute interference with China's judicial authorities' handling of the case?" according to a BBC report (in Chinese) on the same day. Reuters also quoted Qin as saying "I've told you what crimes he committed and what his circumstances are now, and for a so-called human rights organization to honor him as a hero of freedom -- what's the goal or intent behind that?" But the transcript of the press conference posted on the MFA Web site mentioned neither Zhao Yan nor the award.

U.S. officials included Zhao's name in a list of prisoners prepared for U.S. President George W. Bush's meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the United Nations in September 2005, according to an October 5 Washington Post article, and again when the President visited China in November, according to a December 7 article in the New York Times. In addition, several senior U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, have raised Zhao's case with Chinese authorities, according to a State Department official. In August, Professor Jerome A. Cohen, an expert on the Chinese legal system whom the New York Times has retained to assist with Zhao's defense, expressed concern that authorities may have illegally acquired a key piece of evidence that they intend to use in their case against Zhao.