China urged to free reporter detained for stock market story
Investors monitor a display showing the Shanghai Composite Index at a brokerage in Beijing on Aug. 31. Asian stocks fell Monday after a US Federal Reserve official suggested a September interest rate hike still was possible and Japanese factory activity weakened. AP
BEIJING—The Committee to Protect Journalists is urging Chinese authorities to release a reporter accused of spreading false information on the country’s stock market meltdown.
The group is calling it the latest intimidation of journalists by President Xi Jinping’s administration.
On Monday, a state broadcaster showed Wang Xiaolu, a reporter for privately owned financial magazine Caijing, confessing that he wrote a false report that “caused such a great damage to the country and stock investors.”
Press freedom groups say China’s leaders are seeking scapegoats for the collapse of a stock market bubble that was engineered by government policies.
Caijing said last week that Wang had been detained in relation to a July 20 article about market regulators considering ending interventions aimed at stabilizing share prices. Regulators denied the report, and made interventions up to mid-August.
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