Renowned Chinese investigative journalist Liu Hu has gone missing after publishing an article exposing Pu Fuyou, the Party Secretary of Pujiang County in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. There are suspicions that he has been taken away by the police. Another co-author of the article, Chinese self-media personality Wu Yingjiao, was taken away by the Sichuan police on February 1st in Handan, Hebei, sparking attention from the Chinese legal community.
On February 2nd at noon, news of the famous media figure Liu Hu being arrested flooded various WeChat groups and social media platforms.
According to the Information Center of Rights Defense Network, on February 2nd, it was learned that at around 1 p.m. on February 1st, Liu Hu planned to go to Beijing from Wanzhou, Chongqing, and went missing on the way to the high-speed rail station. Another self-media person Wu Yingjiao, who has collaborated with him for a long time, was also taken away by the Chengdu police on the same afternoon in Handan, Hebei.
On the afternoon of February 2nd, the Chengdu police orally notified Liu Hu’s family that Liu Hu was criminally detained on charges of false accusation and illegal business operations, and is currently detained in the Chengdu detention center.
The police stated that Liu Hu has been taken into custody with criminal coercive measures. The case is under further investigation.
On January 29th, Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao jointly published an article titled “Once Forced a Professor to Death, Now Forced Commercial Enterprises to Bankruptcy” on their operated public account “Law and Emotion.” Currently, the article has been deleted by the authors.
After the publication of this article, Liu Hu received a text message from the discipline inspection and supervision commission requesting his assistance in verifying the relevant situation. It is said that the County Party Secretary mentioned in the article filed a report to the police, claiming that the article was suspected of false accusation.
Born in September 1975 in Wanzhou, Chongqing, Liu Hu previously worked as a journalist for the New Express, reporting or writing articles on cases involving Song Lin, the former chairman of China Resources Group, and Zhang Jiahui, the Vice President of the Higher People’s Court of Hainan Province, among others.
In 2013, he was arrested in a “defamation case” involving negative reporting on Ma Zhengqi, the former Vice Mayor of Chongqing and Deputy Director of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, which led to his involvement in the judicial process.
In 2013, he was taken away by the Beijing police from his home on charges of “manufacturing and spreading rumors” for reporting officials. He was later criminally detained.
On August 3, 2014, Liu Hu, who had been detained for 346 days, was granted bail pending trial.
On September 10, 2015, the Dongcheng District Procuratorate in Beijing decided not to prosecute him due to “unclear facts and insufficient evidence.”
In 2016, Liu Hu transitioned to an independent journalist operating a self-media platform, earning praise from netizens. In recent years, half of the investigative reports published under his name have topped the national investigative reporting total.
The report mentioned that the arrest of Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao is a typical case of cracking down on speech. The legal community will continue to monitor this incident.
The situation of Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao being taken away and going missing may be related to this article, sparking heated discussions in the Chinese legal and media circles. Several well-known Chinese lawyers and legal self-media personalities have issued statements in support and called for attention from all sectors.