People’s Daily Journalist Publicly Quits Communist Party

Qiu Mingwei, an employee of Beijing's mouthpiece People's Daily who fled to Hong Kong publicly announces that he quits the CCP and its affiliated organizations. (Sun Qingtian/Epoch Times)

HONG KONG—Qiu Mingwei, a former journalist for the Chinese communist regime’s propaganda news paper, The People’s Daily, who fled to Hong Kong last month, announced in a press conference on August 23 that he quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations, making him the first working employee of an organization affiliated with the regime’s Central Propaganda Department to quit the CCP using his real name.

Mr. Qiu worked as the Deputy Chief of the “People’s Forum” of People’s Daily, the main mouthpiece of the CCP. He traveled to Hong Kong in late June to attend the International Federation of Journalists’ conference, and during his stay he was photographed participating in Hong Kong’s July 1 march, an annual rally supporting democracy and human rights. He fled the mainland to Hong Kong on July 30.

Many media turned out at the press conference when Mr. Qiu made his public announcement, “While working for People’s Daily, I had already used the platform in the office to visit the Epoch Times’ Quit the CCP Service Center website and I had already quit the CCP once. After coming to Hong Kong, I quit it again online. Today, I’m making a public announcement to sever all ties with the CCP, including the Young Pioneers, the Youth League, and the Party.”

“I have been working for People’s Daily for many years. Even I could not find any improvement in human rights in China. They did not keep their promises, and the human rights condition is getting worse.”

Qiu stated that he faced a series of retaliations after returning to Beijing. His boss told him that the Daily was going to revoke his journalist license and fire him. His phone was wiretapped and his apartment was searched by authorities. He was not free to move around and was charged with the crime of collaborating with the enemy.
In addition, he was forced to sign his name on a piece of blank paper, to which anyone can add any statements later and use it as an official declaration when faced with questions from the international community.

Qiu revealed the CCP’s extensive penetration in overseas countries, “The CCP sent out culture spies to penetrate overseas Chinese media and websites, attacking and framing dissidents, including media workers, like us in China, who promote democracy movements.”

Qiu said that someone from higher-up told him that the political persecution against him happened because he had done some investigations on the persecution of Falun Gong and helped some Falun Gong practitioners. “He said, ‘I had conducted some negative investigations that were related to land embezzlement, Falun Gong, and local party officials’ corruption.’ I was also told that these problems were not important. However, my investigation of Falun Gong was not a positive thing for me.”

Qiu said that he later realized, “It’s absolutely not just because I joined the Hong Kong July 1 march. It’s absolutely not just because I attended those meetings in Hong Kong or because I met with some dissidents. It’s because I dared to help Falun Gong practitioners. That’s why this is happening today. They are trying to settle new and old scores with me.”

Qiu said that he had personally witnessed the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. He once saw a woman being chased by an official who intercepted appellants, and the woman was drowned after falling into a river. He said, “I was not the only one who saw it. Many appellants saw it happen. We were all shocked when we saw it. I asked the other appellants why they were so cruel to an appellant. An appellant told me that the woman was a Falun Gong practitioner.”

Read the original Chinese article.