A Chinese journalist from the southern island province of Hainan who reported accusations against a headteacher involving the sexual abuse of schoolgirls has handed in his resignation, his former employer confirmed on Friday.
It could not be confirmed whether he was forced out of his job for exposing official wrongdoing.
"Yang Qiongwen has quit his job," an employee who answered the phone at the Nandao Evening News, where Yang had worked, said. "But I can't say whether he is leaving with immediate effect or after a period of time, because I'm not management."
"It's probably this month," the employee said.
Asked if Yang's resignation was linked to his report into the schoolgirl sex scandal, the employee said: "It's hard to say."
"I spoke to him by phone twice yesterday, and he was fine, but after that I couldn't get through, so I'm not sure of his situation now, because his phone has been switched off the whole day."
In June, the authorities in Hainan's provincial capital, Haikou, indicted Chen Zaipeng on rape charges and removed him from his post as principal of the island's Wanning No. 2 Primary School.
Wanning municipal official Feng Xiaosong was also prosecuted for raping underage girls alongside Chen, official media reported at the time.
Chen is alleged to have taken four girls aged 11-14 to a hotel while Feng is accused of taking two girls of similar age to another hotel, both on the evening of May 8, the official Xinhua news agency quoted police as saying.
The girls weren't pupils at Chen's own school, but studied at the Wanning Houlang Primary School and the Wanning Siyuan Experimental School.
Public anger
A series of sex scandals in recent months involving underage girls has prompted widespread public anger and calls for a review of Chinese laws, which many say are too lax when it comes to punishing child sexual abuse.
Yang's resignation comes after a women's rights activist who launched an online campaign against the sexual abuse of schoolgirls in the wake of the Hainan scandal was held by police in her home province of Guangxi on a charge of "deliberate wounding" after she tweeted that she was being attacked in her home.
The move sparked a wave of negative comments after her arrest was announced by Guangxi's Yulin municipal police department's verified Sina Weibo account.
Former Hebei TV reporter Zhu Xinxin said it is common for journalists to be forced out of their jobs or suffer revenge attacks after exposing official wrongdoing.
"There are many, many journalists who have experienced something similar after they exposed corruption and angered local powerful people," Zhu said.
"They put pressure on the management of these media organizations and force the journalist to resign. This sort of thing has happened a lot."
"Without protection under law, the only support [journalists] get is a sort of moral support from the general public," he said.
Expected 'perk'?
The Hainan sex scandal was followed by reports from nearby Zhanjiang city that a primary school principal surnamed Zheng had lured two sixth-grade primary school students to a dormitory on the pretext of "revision coaching" and raped them repeatedly since the beginning of May.
Similar cases have been reported in recent years in Guangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Fujian provinces, sparking widespread anger and allegations from netizens that underage sex has fast become a "perk" expected by Chinese officials.
The recent scandals have prompted calls from a group of top female lawyers for a review of China's laws on sex with minors.
Before 1997, sex with a person under 14 was deemed to be rape, regardless of whether or not consent was given, as children of that age were deemed incapable of giving consent.
But the introduction of the Sex Crimes Against Girls Law in 1997 led to the separate treatment of sexual contact with a minor from the existing rape law.
Defendants can plead ignorance of a child's age, and crimes under the law carry a maximum penalty of 15 years, compared with a maximum penalty of death under pre-existing rape legislation, lawyers say.
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.