Posted on 08/19/2007 3:35:39 PM PDT by Stoat
All news must be good news, says Chinese governmentJonathan Watts Saturday August 18, 2007 China has ordered its media to report only positive news and has imprisoned a pro-democracy dissident amid a clampdown on dissent ahead of the most important meeting of the communist party in five years.
Media controls have been tightened, Aids activists detained and NGOs shut down as president Hu Jintao prepares for the 17th party congress, when the next generation of national leaders will be unveiled in a politburo reshuffle. Chen Shuqing, who is a founder member of the banned China Democracy party, suffered the toughest punishment meted out so far when he was found guilty on Thursday of "inciting people to overthrow the government". The intermediate people's court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, sentenced him to four years in prison. Chen was an outspoken critic of the Communist party, although because of the tightly controlled traditional media his campaigning in recent years was largely restricted to the internet. The free-speech group Reporters Without Borders said it was appalled by the verdict. "Courts taking their orders from the Communist party continue to crack down on cyber-dissidents," the Paris-based organisation said. "We reiterate our appeal for the release of Chen and the 50 other cyber-dissidents and internet users held in China." With the congress nearing - the exact date is a secret, but it is expected in October - the domestic media have been banned from conducting independent investigations of food and product safety stories. In Beijing the municipal propaganda department has issued detailed instructions to editors on how they should cover the test of traffic-easing measures |
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Giving credit where it's due...I found this news item because it's linked at Orbusmax
Orbusmax Northwest News - 'Around The World In 80K'
It's rather surprising (to me) that a hard-Left media organ like The Guardian would be so very critical of policies in China.....this suggests to me that what's going on in China is REALLY bad, most likely far worse than what's being reported.
Not much different from the Western medias rule: all news have to negative (at least concerning anything remotely American or conservative).
PRC Fairness Doctrine ...
We have our own version of that:
All leftists, traitors, anti-Americans and most other Democrats are GOOD.
All patriots, conservatives and most of the Republican Party is BAD.
Pretty simple. Even a journalism major from a US university can keep those two rules straight.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.