21st Century Crackdown

SEPTEMBER 25 Xinhua News Agency reported that the founder and publisher of the media company, 21st Century Network, Shen Hao, and its general manager, Chen Dongyang, were arrested and taken away by police. This follows the scandal, published by Xinhua on September 10th, of extortion by 21st Century Network.

The “21st Century crackdown” began on September 3rd, when Shanghai Public Security Bureau officials arraigned eight 21st Century Network employees, including the editor and deputy editor. The bust also involved employees from some financial PR companies, such as Shanghai's Yun Yan and Shenzhen's Nukirin. (For more on this, in Chinese, see: 来“八”一下21世纪网新闻敲诈案当事公司之一)

Sources report that on the afternoon of the 25th, just after the start of a party committee meeting at the Southern Newspaper Media Group (SNMG), Shen Hao, Chen Dongyang, Wang Yijun, Guo Yue and the 21st Century network party secretary and deputy secretary were taken away. The involvement of Wang Yijun, deputy editor of the SNMG, and Guo Ye, editor and director of economic news at Nanfang Daily, indicates the complicity of SWMG and related media organisations in the criminal activities of 21st Century's leaders.

At this point, Shen and Chen's culpability in the 21st Century Network's blackmailing is not contended. The severity of their judgment will depend on the extent of their extortion and the official release of the findings in the investigation.

Shen Hao is the heart and soul of 21st Century Network and its newspaper holdings. He was born in March 1971 and graduated from Peking University in 1992, when he began at Southern Newspaper. Shen is a founder of the "21st Century Economic Report" on January 1, 2001. His arrest comes as a great shock to the media circle in China.

(Original Text: http://www.huxiu.com/article/43380/1.html)