CNHRA PERSON RECORD · CNHRA-P-640353
Liu Binyan
Biography
Liu Binyan was a journalist and literary reporter concerned with bureaucracy, corruption and constraints on the press.[1]
Liu worked for China Youth News. His 1956 works, including At the Bridge Construction Site and Inside News of This Newspaper, criticized corruption, bureaucracy and press restrictions.[1]
RSF recounts Liu’s designation as a Rightist in 1957 and repeated periods in labor camps before 1978. After returning to writing, he continued investigating poverty and abuses of power.[1][2]
In a Spring 2006 Nieman Reports memorial, Wang Juntao and Chen Xiaoping discuss Liu’s investigation of corruption in People or Monsters and his treatment of loyalty beyond obedience in A Second Kind of Loyalty. They relay Zhu Hong’s account of his desired epitaph: a person who did and said what he ought to. The article also records his editing work in exile and unanswered requests to return to China after his cancer diagnosis.[2]
Case Summary
Liu faced renewed political punishment in 1987 and left for the US in 1988. RSF reports that he was not allowed to return, including refusal of a late-life request to spend his final days in China.[1]
Liu died in New Jersey on December 5, 2005. RSF’s tribute the following day criticized restrictions on reporting his death in China.[1]
Timeline
1957
Labeled a Rightist
1987
Purged again
RSF recounts renewed political punishment, including Party expulsion, during the anti-liberalization campaign after Liu’s continuing investigations of poverty and abuses of power.[1]
1988
Leaves China
RSF records Liu’s departure for the US and continued writing abroad after June 1989. His late-life request to return to China was refused.[1]
Related Events
Sources
- [1]
CNHRA-S-675397Reporters Without Borders
Evidence location: Body: journalism, political punishment, 1988 departure and death in 2005.
- [2]
CNHRA-S-409509Nieman Reports
Evidence location: End Note: memorial article on Liu Binyan; Journalist Liu Binyan: China’s Conscience, printed page 100 (PDF page 102); exile writing and Zhu Hong’s account of the proposed epitaph.