China Punishes Nearly 200 Over ‘Rumors’ About Stocks, Blasts and Parade

AUG. 31, 2015

BEIJING — The Chinese Ministry of Public Security has punished at least 197 people in recent days for “spreading rumors” online, it said. Its announcement did not give details, but the accused have presumably been detained.

The so-called rumors were related to China’s continuing stock market uncertainty, the recent industrial explosions in Tianjin and the military parade scheduled for Thursday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the ministry said on Sunday. Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said on Monday that the ministry’s actions were the core of a “special campaign” by the police.

The moves are an indication of the political sensitivities that have been aggravated in recent weeks by several volatile issues, among which the most painful for Chinese leaders have been the slowing economy and the market collapse.

Months ago, President Xi Jinping and other senior Chinese officials called for the military parade as a bravado display of nationalism and scheduled Mr. Xi’s first state visit to the United States in September, but now both occasions are expected to be shadowed by the various crises that have shaken China this summer.

One of the more prominent targets of the recent campaign has been a reporter for a respected business magazine, Caijing. The reporter, Wang Xiaolu, was compelled to make a confession on television in which he said he had written a “sensational” and “irresponsible” article on the stock market. Those remarks were broadcast on Monday on China Central Television, the main state network.

In recent years, the Chinese authorities have increasingly used confessions on the network to humiliate detainees and hold up their cases as warnings for others, even before any criminal proceedings have taken place.

Human rights and press freedom advocates have denounced the detention of Mr. Wang.

Mr. Wang wrote an article published on July 20 by Caijing that said the China Securities Regulatory Commission was seeking to withdraw funds from the stock market. The police detained Mr. Wang on Aug. 25, and Caijing issued a statement saying it did not know why he had been detained. On Friday, his article was still up on Caijing’s website, but it has since been taken down.

Xinhua said that Mr. Wang’s July report had caused “abnormal fluctuations” in the stock market.

In his videotaped statement, Mr. Wang asked for leniency. He appeared in a light-green polo shirt rather than the orange prison garb worn by others who have made recent televised confessions in cases involving different accusations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit based in New York,issued a statement last week criticizing China for detaining Mr. Wang for doing his job.

“Chinese authorities’ hypersensitivity to fluctuations in the financial markets is no reason to intimidate and jail a journalist for covering the news,” said Bob Dietz, the group’s Asia program coordinator. “We call on Chinese authorities to immediately release Wang Xiaolu.”

Calls made to a number for Caijing went unanswered on Monday.

Along with Mr. Wang, several financial officials and executives were detained last week for contributing to the stock market gyrations and have been dealt with by “criminal compulsory measures,” according to Xinhua. Those individuals include Liu Shufan, an official with the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the agency on which Mr. Wang had written. Four executives from Citic Securities Company, the leading Chinese securities dealer, were also detained last week, the news agency reported.

In its Sunday announcement about the 197 people punished, the Ministry of Public Security, which oversees most domestic security matters in China, said it had shut down 165 “online accounts” for violations.

The Chinese authorities have tried various ways to clamp down on Internet speech, including broadening the definition of a charge called “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to apply to Internet writings.

The Ministry of Public Security said that examples of recent offending online rumors included one that said 1,300 people had been killed by the Tianjin explosions and another that said a man had jumped to his death because of the plummeting stock market.

On Monday, officials in Tianjin said the explosions, set off by hazardous material being stored in warehouses near the port of Tianjin, had killed at least 158 people and resulted in the hospitalization of 356 others. The dead included 94 firefighters, 11 police officers and 53 civilians. About 15 people remain missing.

An investigation by The New York Times showed that the company that was storing the chemicals, Rui Hai International Logistics, had exploited weak governance in Tianjin and had used political connections to avoid scrutiny.