A Chinese journalist who was imprisoned for alerting the public to an outbreak of dengue fever before the authorities has been awarded the 2008 Golden Pen of Freedom, the World Association of Newspapers' announced today.

Li Changqing, a reporter and deputy news director of the Fuzhou Daily in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, was detained without charges for nearly a year, then sentenced to three years in prison in January 2006 for “fabricating and spreading false information.”

The charges are based on an anonymous report posted on the Chinese-language Web site, Boxun News Network, which is based in the United States, according to WAN's annual press freedom prize announcement.

No reports on the outbreak in Fuzhou of dengue, a viral, mosquito-borne disease, had been made by members of the Chinese press or by health officials, due to censorship and rigid restrictions enforced by the Communist Party Propaganda Department on sensitive social issues.

Li reported on so-called sensitive social issues and government corruption before being put in prison in 2006. In 2005, he was held in police custody on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power” after authorities alleged he had written in support of Huang Jingao, a Communist Party official and whistle blower who publicly denounced corruption among local officials and was therefore imprisoned on corruption charges. Li was never charged in that case, but he was held for more than 11 months, until he was tried and convicted for reporting on the dengue fever outbreak.

This is the second year in a row that a Chinese journalist has received the press freedom award, “an unprecedented decision that reflects the repressive conditions for media in China,” according to a WAN statement. The 2007 winner was Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist who was put in prison when American search engine giant Yahoo gave Chinese authorities information that led to his arrest.

The award will be presented at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum, a global summit meeting of the world's press, to be held June 1 – 4, 2008 in Göteborg, Sweden.