After censor row, Southern Weekly treads warily with New Year's message
Southern Weekly insists on right to 'express truth' but avoids mention of previous stand-off
A newspaper at the centre of rare protests over government censorship last year - after its New Year's message was altered - insisted in this year's article on its right to "express the truth".
The row at the Southern Weekly blew up when an article urging greater protection of people's rights was replaced by one praising the Communist Party.
Demonstrators massed outside the offices of the newspaper in Guangzhou, in a rare stand-off against authorities over media freedom.
This year's New Year message focused on the newspaper's values in fighting for truth on its 30-year anniversary. It took a largely philosophical tone, and did not contain any overt mention of last year's incident or any reference to the government's propaganda machine.
But it said: "As a newspaper that strives for the truth, we are sometimes powerful as well as powerless.
"But we have no choice … but to question, and express the truth industrially, professionally and responsibly," it said.
China was going through a period of "great rejuvenation" and "transformation", it said, but warned that presented an opportunity for "what is false to pretend to be real".