Chinese journalists end strike

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/jan/09/censorship-china

Version 0 of 1.

Chinese communist party officials and journalists from the Southern Weekly newspaper have reached a tentative compromise after the strike over censorship, according to a Financial Times story.

It reports that some of the propaganda measures will be lifted in order to get editorial staff to return to work to produce this week's issue. The FT bases its article on messages it has seen on an internal chat group.

The strike at the Guangdong newspaper occurred after an official spiked a new year's day editorial calling for civil rights and replaced with one praising the communist party.

Staff wrote an open letter to the provincial propaganda department demanding the resignation of one of its highest-ranked officials, Tuo Zhen.

Demonstrators gathered outside the newspaper's offices in Guangzhou for two days in support of the striking journalists.

But the FT article concludes by suggesting that any deal may temporary, and a report in the South China Morning Post refers to a memo sent to party chiefs by the publicity department of the party's central committee stressing the party's maintenance of "absolute control" of the Chinese press.

It added that the memo spoke of "hostile foreign forces" interfering in the Southern Weekly incident.

<em>Sources:</em> Financial Times/South China Morning Post