Police of a Chinese county withdrew on Tuesday an official investigation into a reporter whose article was allegedly a slander to the county's Communist Party chief after media and citizens questioned the justice of the move.

The Xifeng County Public Security Bureau had withdrawn the "improper" investigation decision, the bureau's director Wang Weidong told Xinhua late Tuesday night.

Zhang Zhiguo, Party chief of Xifeng in northeastern Liaoning Province, reportedly dispatched police officers to Beijing to subpoena Zhu Wenna, a female reporter for Faren Magazine for a story about the county.

Zhu published the story on Jan. 1 this year, saying that Zhang had ordered the arrest of a woman for libel after she had sent a sarcastic text message alleging corruption after her gas station was demolished to make way for a market with meagre compensation.

More than 14,000 Chinese netizens left comments on the Internet, denouncing the act of the Xifeng police.

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2008)