China’s State Administration of Radio and Television (SARFT) issued a “brief” on Feb. 12, announcing that it would not accept the BBC’s “application for landing in China. The move is the latest punishment after China’s Foreign Ministry condemned the company’s Xinjiang news reports as “smear and defamation” and demanded a public apology.
Without mentioning the specifics, the “brief” accused the BBC of “seriously violating the relevant provisions of the Regulations on the Administration of Radio and Television and the Measures for the Administration of the Landing of Overseas Satellite TV Channels” with its “China-related reports. It “damages China’s national interests and undermines China’s national unity”. The “brief” said: “The State Administration of Radio and Television does not allow BBC World News to continue to land in China, and its application for landing in the new year will not be accepted”.
It is reported that the BBC previously interviewed a number of Chinese Muslim minority women who had been detained in “re-Education camps” in Xinjiang, including a Uighur woman who has now fled to the United States, saying that women were raped by masked men “every night” at the camps and that she had been tortured and gang-raped three times. Another Kazakh woman from Xinjiang said she was detained in a “re-education camp” for 18 months and was forced to undress and handcuff Uighur women before handing them over to “Chinese men. “A spokesman for the BBC issued a statement in response.
A spokesman for the BBC issued a statement in response, expressing disappointment at China’s ban on the broadcast of BBC World News programmes in the country. But the spokesman also stressed that the BBC is the world’s most trusted international news broadcaster, reporting news from around the world fairly and impartially, without fear or favor to any party.
The BBC’s revelations about the massive sexual assaults in Xinjiang concentration camps have sparked a strong international backlash. A State Department spokesman said in a statement last week that the U.S. was deeply concerned about the BBC’s coverage, which was shocking to the conscience and bound to have serious consequences. British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Adams said anyone who saw the BBC report would be shocked by the obvious evil and that Britain would continue to work with the European Union and the United States to pressure China on human rights issues in Xinjiang. For his part, Australian Foreign Minister Payne has publicly appealed to the United Nations to travel to Xinjiang as soon as possible to conduct an investigation into human rights issues.
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