Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – An open letter signed by more than 2,000 Chinese journalists urges the Beijing government to release two "unjustly detained" colleagues.

 The "open letter" is a form of expression never used before by Chinese journalists: the media is practically completely controlled by the government. In this case however, 2,356 journalists who work in important daily newspapers and internet sites called on the provincial High Court of Guangdong to release the former director-general and the head editor of the Southern Metropolitan Daily, imprisoned last year under the charge of having embezzling money from the State and accepting bribes. Their colleagues maintain the two men are "innocent and unjustly persecuted on the basis of trumped up charges".

Throughout their career, the two signed articles revealing the true picture of the Sars epidemics and the role played by the authorities in the brutal death of a detainee.

The Chinese media has already born the brunt of similar censorship and "punishment". In January 2004, the newspaper which was the first to publish the news about a 22-year-old television producer who had Sars in Guangdong was the daily newspaper Nanfangzhoumo, a popular tabloid-style newspaper in the province. After the news was published, the newsroom staff was interrogated at length by public security authorities for presumed "crimes against the State". Zeng Wenqiong, who wrote the article, was first kept away from work and later arrested.