Posted on 03/14/2003 4:45:43 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin
BEIJING - China suspended a top weekly news tabloid after it published politically sensitive articles and defied the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) propaganda department, editors and reporters said yesterday.
The 21st Century World Herald was shut for printing articles comparing China's retiring leaders with the younger generation taking the reins of power this weekend during a two-week session of Parliament, said a senior newspaper editor who declined to be named.
Other sources said the newspaper was closed for publishing an impassioned plea for political reform along with a critique of past leaders by Chairman Mao Zedong's former secretary Li Rui, 85.
Mr Li criticised Chairman Mao for creating a cult of personality and subsequent leader Deng Xiaoping for failing to carry out political reforms.
He also praised ex-CCP general secretary Hu Yaobang, whose death in 1989 touched off student protests that ended with the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The newspaper, published by the Southern Daily Group in the southern city of Guangzhou, also ran articles on the nuclear standoff between the United States and North Korea that ignored propaganda department orders that reports conform with the government position, the unidentified editor said.
'We knew it would be shut down,' he said.
A 21st Century World Herald official said the newspaper was 'redesigning the layout'.
But other editors confirmed the weekly had been closed. One of them said the paper would be taken off the news-stands for a month.
The authorities have been known to close publications that push the boundaries of acceptable debate. --Reuters, Washington Post
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