It happened

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Nick-la
Wonder Wit

Joined: July 19, 2003
Posts: 3675
Location: Wasted on this site

Posted: May 04, 2004 - 06:13 PM
Post subject: It happened

God bless the internet, they can't just kll him now, the media knows

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1208925,00.html

Chinese professor attacks state censors

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Tuesday May 4, 2004
The Guardian

A professor at one of China's foremost universities has launched ferocious attack on the state propaganda department saying it uses Nazi tactics and has been covering up famines, corruption and disease for more than 50 years.
In what may be a sign of a power struggle within the Communist party, the author, Beijing University journalism professor Jiao Guobiao, said he was "encouraged by elders" to launch the tirade.

Its target is an organisation that is controlled by allies of the former president Jiang Zemin, who is said to have used his position as head of the military to block moves towards more democracy and media freedom.

The essay has predictably been banned in the mainstream media, but it can be seen on the internet, where it has become a focus of the disappointment felt by many who had hoped the new leadership of President Hu Jintao and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, would loosen the gag on free speech.

Mr Jiao, a former journalist, called for the abolition of the state's propaganda machinery, which he said was guilty of shielding corrupt officials and whitewashing the darkest moments in the country's history.

"The character of its work is the complete opposite of that of a modern civilisation," he wrote. "Where else can you find propaganda departments? Not in the US, the UK or Europe. But you did find them in Nazi Germany, where Goebbels said 'a lie that is repeated 1,000 times becomes the truth'."

Ignoring the caution that usually typifies public criticism of state institutions in China, Mr Jiao dished out the sort of vitriol that the propaganda department was once famous for.

"Their censorship orders are totally groundless, absolutely arbitrary, at odds with the basic standards of civilisation, and as counter to scientific common sense as witches and wizardry," he wrote. "They take money from the parties referred to in reports. They distort the media's sense of right and wrong and justice. They are killing the constitution."

He accused the department of covering up the starvation of millions in the famines of 1962 and more recently of hiding the Sars epidemic. In one case, he said, it took money to fix a programme that was due to appear on television about Ningbo City.

In the past, outspoken critics have been arrested and jailed. But Mr Jiao said he could no longer remain silent about the "No orders" issued by the propaganda department.

"The worst thing that could happen to me is death," he wrote. "But I cannot stand see ing the Communist party develop in this way. We must take responsibility for China."

Chinese journalists say the propaganda department issue a list of stories that must not be reported. According to the Secret China website, the lat est list includes prohibitions on stories on the revaluation of the currency, university graduates' poor job prospects, the business activities of government officials in Anhui province and sales of state-owned assets. Similar blocks have been placed on book publications, including anything to do with one-night stands and extra-marital affairs.

A year ago, hopes were high that the new government would relax media controls. Journalists had been allowed unprecedented freedom to expose the Sars cover-up and a policy paper was circulating in the high ranks of the Communist party that would have forced officials to be more responsive to media requests for information and interviews.

But in recent months, the journalists who pioneered stories on Sars have been imprisoned, and the transparency proposals have been shelved. The Guardian was told that the former president Jiang Zemin was behind the tightening of controls. The head of the propaganda department is the vice president, Zeng Qinghong, a close ally of Mr Jiang.

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Edgewood
FooSlinger

Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai

Posted: May 05, 2004 - 08:47 AM

Quote:

A year ago, hopes were high that the new government would relax media controls. Journalists had been allowed unprecedented freedom to expose the Sars cover-up and a policy paper was circulating in the high ranks of the Communist party that would have forced officials to be more responsive to media requests for information and interviews.

But in recent months, the journalists who pioneered stories on Sars have been imprisoned, and the transparency proposals have been shelved.

Not dissimilar to the attitudes in the months before the cultural revolution and also leading up to certain events at Tiananmen Square... Be nice, lure dissenters out of the woodword, then get mediaeval on their asses. Wo de zhong guo!

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