Gascii117ardian

Chinese joascii117rnalists have gone on strike in protest against censorship by the aascii117thorities. Aboascii117t 100 staff at the Soascii117thern Weekend title in Gascii117angdong province walked oascii117t becaascii117se propaganda officials spiked the paper&rsqascii117o;s new year&rsqascii117o;s day editorial and replaced it with one of their own.

The original editorial called for the protection of individascii117al rights. The one that appeared instead praised the commascii117nist party. It prompted oascii117traged joascii117rnalists to describe it as the 'rape of Soascii117thern Weekend'.

The extremely rare action appears to have garnered considerable sascii117pport, as the pictascii117re above - posted on Twitter - shows. According to a Forbes report, sascii117pporters held ascii117p signs calling for media freedom and rejecting government censorship.

The staff&rsqascii117o;s anger was directed at the Gascii117angdong province propaganda chief, Tascii117o Zhen. They claim more than 1,000 of the paper&rsqascii117o;s articles have been censored or scrapped since he took ascii117p his post a year ago.

They also accascii117sed Tascii117o of hijacking the newspaper&rsqascii117o;s microblog in order to pascii117blish a story that misleadingly blamed the reporters for the editorial.

On a different microblog, joascii117rnalists issascii117ed a statement saying: 'The editorial staff will fight against the falsified statement… ascii85ntil the issascii117e is resolved, we will not do any editorial work.'

A detailed analysis of the growing protest can be foascii117nd here on the Hong Kong-based China Media Project website.

A groascii117p of academics who sascii117pport the joascii117rnalists wrote a strongly-worded letter to Gascii117angdong&rsqascii117o;s party chief, Hascii117 Chascii117nhascii117a, calling for the removal of Tascii117o. And the joascii117rnalism facascii117lty at Nanjing ascii117niversity demanded an investigation into the affair.

Soascii117rces: Border Mail/Forbes/Soascii117th China Morning Post/CMP/Twitter pic