时事资讯:央视女记者因受贿罪获刑

【英文原文】

CCTV Reporter Found Guilty of Bribery

In the conclusion to a strange case, a reporter from China’s state-owned Central Television (CCTV) received a suspended sentence of three years (plus a four-year probation period) for taking a bribe in the northern province of Shanxi, according to Xinhua.

The Xinghualing District Court in Taiyuan city, capital of Shanxi, found 31-year-old Li Min guilty of taking 37,000 yuan from the brother of a man who was under investigation by local prosecutors. The court also said Ms. Li abused her position as a state media worker to intervene in the case last fall. Ms. Li pled guilty and said she would not appeal the sentence, Xinhua reported (in Chinese here).

Last year, Ms. Li traveled with two other journalists from Beijing to Shanxi to report on a dispute between two businessmen: Wu Xiaohui, general manager of a Guangdong-based real estate company, and Hao Jianxiu, a local businessman from Taiyuan city, Shanxi province.

According to previous reports, Wu Xiaohui had been arrested three times by Shanxi authorities and released each time for lack of evidence. Mr. Wu was arrested again in November last year.

Wu Xiaohua, the jailed Wu’s younger brother, met Ms. Li in July 2008, according to court documents.

In November, Li filed a CCTV report alleging that the Xinghualing procuratorate was abusing its power by prosecuting Wu Xiaohui.

Ms. Li was arrested the following month for accepting cash and expensive items (including a car) worth 200,000 yuan from the jailed man’s brother. In her defense, Ms. Li said that she was in a romantic relationship with Wu Xiaohua and that the items she had received were gifts and not bribes.

Despite the apparent conflict of interest between Ms. Li’s relationship with Wu Xiaohua and her reporting on his brother’s legal troubles, some observers interpret Ms. Li’s arrest as another case of official interference with press freedoms. Chinese media reported that other visiting reporters investigating were ordered to leave the city and threatened with revocation of their journalist credentials if they stayed.

Public debate over Ms. Li’s case has focused largely on two issues: whether the car she received should be considered a bribe; and whether, as a reporter, she should be charged with accepting bribes.

Ms. Li’s lawyer ultimately succeeded in having the car removed from the list of bribery items, according to the court’s final report this week, which put the amount involved at only 37,000 yuan.

China’s criminal law defines the crime of bribery as occurring when “state personnel take advantage of their office to demand money and things from other people” or when they “obtain favors.” In this case, the Shanxi procuratorate’s office successfully argued that Ms. Li was an employee of a government organization, since CCTV is run by the state. However, in practice, it is common for Chinese journalists to receive “red packets” filled with cash for attending press conferences and other corporate events, purportedly to cover their travel expenses.