A dispute involving Chinese journalists openly confronting a top censor has escalated. For the first time in more than two decades, the editorial staff of a leading newspaper has openly staged a strike against government censorship.

The editorial staff at Southern Weekend announced a strike after the paper management took over the official Sina Weibo account (China’s popular microblogging platform), and issued a statement claiming that a controversial front-page New Year editorial had been written by its staff and was not a last-minute alteration by Guangdong propaganda officials.

The paper staff later signed a statement through another official Weibo account, Economic News Department of Southern Weekend, denying the management's statement and announced a strike.

"The statement [on the official Weibo account] does not represent the opinion of the editorial staff. It is a result of pressure applied by the authorities on the management. The editorial staff will fight against the falsified statement. Until the issue is resolved, we will not do any editorial work," it said.

It was also verified by the paper's head of new media business, Wu Wei, that the paper's account has been taken over.

Just a few minutes before the account posted the statement, Wu said on his personal account that he has been forced to hand in the passwords of the official account to the management, and he would no longer be responsible for whatever the account would post.

Late Sunday night, the paper’s editorial staff published a joint statement through their personal Weibo accounts, denying the management’s statement again and saying they will release more accurate information about the incident.

It has been signed by over 96 staff members and says more names will be listed.

As of Monday morning, however, none of the above posts except the management’s statement could be found on Weibo. Many posts discussing the incident have been deleted or blocked. Currently, a search on Weibo for “Southern Weekend” or any one of the four characters (Nan Fang Zhou Mo in Chinese) produces no results.

Last week, Southern Weekend staff called for press freedom and demanded the resignation of the propaganda chief of Guangdong province Tuo Zhen for the censors’ replacing the paper’s annual editorial address with a short bland message lined with officialese.

The censorship order was believed to have come from Tuo, a former vice-president of state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend, sometimes called Southern Weekly, founded in 1984, is considered the most outspoken newspaper in China. The New York Times has described the Southern Weekend as "China's most influential liberal newspaper".