Two Chinese journalists whose assets were frozen in a 30-million-yuan (US$3.75 million) defamation case brought by a Chinese Taiwan-funded company have opened a blog, creating an online frenzy.

China Business News journalists Weng Bao and Wang You chose the www.sina.com.cn website to voice their grievances. The first article was posted at 4:10 PM Monday and had been read by 69,675 Internet users in just over a day.

Weng said in the blog that he was under tremendous pressure. "It is the most difficult time for me since I began to work for media ten years ago."

Wang You said that her home, included among the frozen assets, was a gift from her parents who had spent all their savings, and that her bank account contained her dowry money.

The Hongfujin Precision Industry Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Taiwan's Foxconn that manufactures iPods for US-based Apple Inc., has sued the journalists over a report saying most of its workers stand up 12 hours a day while working and that some fainted with fatigue.

Hongfujin is seeking 30 million yuan in damages from the journalists with the Shanghai-based newspaper. The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court froze the two journalists' assets, including their homes, a car and two bank accounts.

As well as representing the largest sum in damages ever sought in a Chinese defamation case, it stands as a landmark for media rights in China, being the first such lawsuit against individual journalists in recent years.

Since its announcement, the court's controversial ruling has aroused heated discussions in Chinese newspapers and websites, drawing strong criticisms from the public. An on-line poll of 16,156 people launched by www.sina.com.cn showed on Tuesday evening that 52.17 percent of respondents believed that Hongfujin would lose the case, 37.9 percent argued that the company and the journalists would be reach an agreement, 5 percent believed the company would win and the remaining 4.93 percent were undecided. The survey also showed 87.66 percent of people believed the two journalists did not damage the reputation of the company.

"Large enterprises should be subject to rigorous monitoring by the people and the media," Peking University Law School professor He Weifang said.

In an interview published Tuesday with the Southern Metropolis Daily, He said "the most absurd thing is that the target of the lawsuit was not the newspaper but the reporters."

"It is the professional duty of a journalist to publish what he writes in the newspaper, because this is what the newspaper asks him to do. Therefore, the wrong entity has been sued (in this case)," He stressed.

"Furthermore," He noted, "the court has not even done the most basic investigation before freezing all assets of the individuals."

"This creates an impression to people that every stage of the process is seriously flawed," He said.

Agreeing with He, Yang Lixin, law professor from the Renmin University, made it clear that "Chinese law doesn't even support a claim like Foxconn's."

According to a judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme Court in 1993 on libel cases, "if the literary work at dispute is written by full-time journalists while fulfilling their work duties -- reporting and writing for their newspaper -- then only the employer, i.e. the newspaper, should be listed as the defendant," added He.

"The journalists are entitled to petition the court and obtain the unfreezing of their personal assets," Yang told the Beijing News.

Li Kanli of Southern Metropolis Daily said in his column: "It is the professional duty for news reporters to expose sweat factories."

"It is incredible that the court should accept the petition. Even if the total assets of the two individuals are frozen, that would be far short of the astronomical demands of 10 and 20 million RMB yuan respectively," he said, asking "What is the point of the court freezing the assets of the two reporters?"

Yun Lizhen, an official with Guangdong High Court, told Xinhua on Tuesday that the Shenzhen court officials held a meeting after Chinese media reported the case and the court would hear and settle the case as soon as possible.

Hongfujin officials refused to comment on Tuesday, but said an appropriate response would be made at a later date.

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2006)