CHINA: Two financial journalists have had their assets frozen in China's biggest defamation case over a news report that a factory in Shenzhen manufacturing iPod music players mistreated workers.
The lawsuit has sparked concerns about journalists' rights and angered a diverse clutch of interest groups, including the Chinese state media, legal experts and foreign and local journalists.
The case was brought by the Taiwanese company Foxconn against reporter Wang You and editor Weng Bao of the Shanghai-based daily, China Business News. The Shenzhen People's Court froze the journalists' assets, including their homes, a car and two bank accounts.
Foxconn, which employs 200,000 people at its Shenzhen plant, is seeking €3 million in compensation over a June 15th report in China Business News that accused the company of violating workers' rights by forcing them to work overtime for low pay. The China Business News report followed a story in Britain's Mail on Sunday saying Foxconn workers worked in poor conditions.
The story has been a major public-relations embarrassment for Apple Computer Inc, which makes the iPod and prides itself on its image. Apple said Foxconn allowed employees at the China plant work longer hours than allowed by Apple's code of conduct and that it had taken steps to address the issue.
Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders sent an open letter to Apple chief Steve Jobs.
"We believe that all Wang and Weng did was report the facts and we condemn Foxconn's reaction. We therefore ask you to intercede on behalf of these two journalists so that their assets are unfrozen and the lawsuit is dropped," it wrote.
The journalists themselves said the case was "a test of reporters' dignity and rights" and China Business News urged Foxconn to drop the case.
The lawsuit has also triggered criticism in the tightly controlled mainstream state media.
"[ The case] has sent a dangerous signal to society, and means legal procedures could be used to suppress freedom of speech," ran an editorial in the official China Youth Daily.
While coverage of political matters is tightly controlled in China, financial journalists are allowed to work with greater freedom. Business magazine Caijin, for example, is widely considered one of the most progressive publications in China.
"The most absurd thing is that the target of the lawsuit was not the newspaper but the reporters," Prof He Weifang of Peking University law school told the Southern Metropolis Daily.