Beijing - Two senior editors have been removed from a campaigning Chinese newspaper after publishing an article suggesting the state was responsible for rural unrest. The deputy editor-in-chief of the Southern Weekend, Mr Qian Gang, and the front-page news editor, Mr Chang Ping, have been removed but not sacked, writes Miriam Donohoe.
Sources at the paper claim the reporter who wrote the story and another editor have been fired and banned from working in the media. The offending story centred on a Chinese criminal, Zhang Jun, who killed 22 people and stole $650,000 in robberies across central China. It claimed that something was wrong with the rural society that Zhang grew up in.