The dismissed editors of Freezing Point, a weekly journal recently shut down by the Chinese government, have blasted Chinese propaganda officials and called for freedom of speech in a public letter. Some intellectual supporters of theirs wrote a joint letter to China's President Hu Jintao, saying the closing of the journal violated China's Constitution.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

The two broadsides came as intellectuals and some former party officials have sharply criticized the recent increase in censorship of the news media. Propaganda officials, who shut down Freezing Point last month, announced this week that the publication would restart March 1, but without the top two editors.

In their public letter, which was released in Beijing, the two editors, Li Datong and Lu Yuegang, defended their stewardship of Freezing Point and made an ardent plea for freedom of expression, saying it was the role of the news media to investigate "unfairness in the world."

"What do the people want?" they wrote. "The freedom of publication and expression granted by the Constitution."

As for the plan to resume publication of Freezing Point, the editors added: "The newspaper run by the taxpayers' money is forced to publish the trash of the propaganda officials. This is a crime and an abuse of power."

Freezing Point is a supplement of the official China Youth Daily newspaper. In closing the supplement, propaganda officials singled out an essay by a Chinese historian, Yuan Weishi, that had blamed Chinese textbooks for whitewashing the savagery of the Boxer Rebellion, the violent movement against foreigners in China at the beginning of the 20th century.