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The editor and executive editor-in- chief were removed from their posts, sources within the organisation that owns the China Press told the BBC.

The paper incorrectly identified a woman filmed being humiliated in a police station as a Chinese national.

The woman, seen being forced to squat naked, was later identified as a Malay.

The video showed the woman being made to hold her ears and squat repeatedly while a Malay Muslim policewoman stood over her.

Similar stories of Chinese tourists being abused by the Malaysian police over alleged visa violations have been widely reported in China.

Different standards

BBC News correspondent Jonathan Kent says the China Press rushed to put two and two together but was proved wrong.

The woman was not an ethnic Chinese nor a Chinese tourist.

Government supporters said the paper, which is written in Chinese and has a large Malaysian-Chinese readership, could have turned the report into a race issue.

Our correspondent says sources within the organisation that owns the China Press told the BBC the editor-in-chief and executive editor-in-chief had been removed from their posts.

There has not yet been a formal announcement.

The ministry in charge of the police also threatened action which could have led to the paper's licence being withdrawn.

But civil liberties groups said the government is not being even handed, expecting journalists to maintain higher standards than police officers or politicians.

They said the video justified complaints against it, but Malaysia's deputy police chief and the minister responsible for the force, who both defended the procedure, were not forced to pay with their jobs.