The International Press Institute is deeply disturbed by the killing of a Chinese journalist, who was beaten to death while investigating an unlicensed coalmine.

China Trade News reporter Lan Chengzhang, 35, and two colleagues were attacked in Datong’s Hunyuan county, in the northern province of Shanxi, on 9 January. Lan died in hospital on the following day from an apparent brain haemorrhage caused by the beating, China Trade News Assistant Chief Editor Wang Jianfeng said.

Based on a report from the South China Morning Post, word of the incident first appeared in a message posted in a mainland online chat room. According to the message, Lan and his colleagues were beaten with clubs by individuals, reportedly hired by the mine’s owners, as they completed their interviews at the mine. Lan at first managed to escape but returned to rescue his colleagues, the message said. The three journalists were sent to a Datong hospital, where Lan later died.

Chinese journalists who went to investigate Lan’s death were prevented by police from entering the hospital, leading to a clash between reporters and police.

Lan had been hired by China Trade News’s Shanxi bureau on 3 January and was still on three months’ probation.

Following the journalist’s death, Shanxi officials tried to imply that Lan was not a reporter and insinuated that he might have been seeking a bribe in return for not reporting problems at the mine.

China’s numerous coalmines are well known for their high fatality rate. At the beginning of this year, China’s State Work Safety Supervision Administration stated that a total of 4,746 Chinese coal miners were killed in about 3,000 blasts, floods and other accidents in 2006, down 20.1 per cent from 2005.

Lan’s death and the reaction of Shanxi officials caused an outcry in mainland China, where even the state-controlled media reported on Lan’s death, raising questions about local officials’ conduct and the rights of the country’s beleaguered reporters, according to Reuters.

While welcoming the reaction of the Chinese media, which shows support for investigative journalists and an understanding of their basic rights, IPI is concerned that beating journalists to death appears to have become a new trend in China.

In 2006, two journalists died in China after being beaten. Wu Xianghu, deputy editor of the newspaper Taizhou Wanbao, died on 2 February from injuries sustained when traffic police in the city of Taizhou, Zhejiang province, attacked him on 20 October 2005. The attack followed a report in his newspaper on the high fees charged for electric bicycle licenses. Xiao Guopeng, a reporter for the daily Anshun, was beaten to death on 18 July by a police officer outside his newspaper’s offices in Guizhou province.

“It is well known that corruption is an endemic problem in China. It is also widely accepted that a free media is the best guarantee against corruption,” IPI Director Johann Fritz said commenting on Lan’s murder. “The killing of investigative journalists in China threatens to discourage this most important kind of journalism. IPI therefore urges Chinese authorities to do everything in their power to make sure that the perpetrators of such crimes are brought to justice according to international standards. By doing so, the Chinese government will be sending a clear signal that the killing of journalists is not tolerated.”