Bloomberg reporter Fan Ruoy was detained on suspicion of endangering national security.
Bloomberg reporter Fan Ruoy was detained by the Chinese Communist Party on suspicion of endangering national security, according to Facebook information.
According to the Central News Agency (CNA), Bloomberg Beijing China employee Fan Ruo Yi was detained by Beijing authorities on the 7th of this month on suspicion of endangering national security. In August, Australian-born Cheng Lei, host of an English-language financial program on the official Chinese Communist Party television network CGTN, was also detained on suspicion of endangering national security and has not been released.
To date, authorities have not announced the specific charges against Cheng Lei or Fan Ruo Yi, or whether they are involved in the same case.
Cheng Lei’s personal Facebook page shows that she is close friends with Haze Fan, a Bloomberg News employee who was taken away by Beijing’s state security authorities on Monday for the same reason.
In February, Cheng Lei posted that she and Fan had each sought permission from their companies to travel to Wuhan to cover the outbreak, but were not allowed to do so, so they each raised money and supplies for frontline medical workers in Wuhan, and within hours had collected more than 100,000 yuan and other supplies to give to doctors at Peking Union Medical College Hospital who were preparing to travel to Wuhan.
In August, Australian-born Cheng Lei, host of CGTN’s English-language financial program, was also arrested on suspicion of endangering national security.
Cheng Lei’s arrest was followed by the emergency evacuation of ABC journalist Bill Birtles and Australian Financial Review journalist Michael Smith from China in September, under threat from Chinese security officials.
In addition, Chinese authorities expelled more than 10 U.S. media reporters from China earlier this year, including the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and several U.S. media reporters were denied renewal of their visas to China after their visas expired.
In response to Van Rooij’s ordeal, John Pomfret, former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post, told Radio Free Asia on Dec. 11, “It’s almost like a kidnapping, almost like a kidnapping.”
Pan said, “(The situation) could continue to go downhill, and it’s particularly tense right now, but the pressure is extraordinarily high primarily on those who are doing things for foreign journalists who are Chinese citizens, and that’s a very clear sign that this is killing the chicken for the monkey.”
When the June 4 Incident broke out in 1989, Pan Wen, then a reporter for the Associated Press in China, was found by Chinese officials to have “illegally covered and distorted reports” on the Tiananmen Square incident and was given a 72-hour time limit to leave the country. He returned to China in 1998 as the Beijing bureau chief of the Washington Post and was also expelled from the country during that time.
Cedric Alviani, executive director of the East Asia office of Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom advocacy organization, said that to date, Reporters Without Borders has arrested at least 180 journalists in China, including Fan Ruoi, and called on Chinese officials to release all journalists, including Fan Ruoi, as soon as possible.
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