In an interesting case of self-censorship, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) removed an actively promoted documentary from its broadcast schedule shortly before it was to be shown on their news channel.
The documentary is an examination of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been persecuted and repressed in China. Though the CBC has previously aired the documentary late at night, they bowed to pressure from Chinese officials to remove the documentary from the broadcast rotation.
As a quick reminder, the CBC is a Crown corporation funded by public money and responsible only to Canadian citizens and our government.
See the Globe and Mail article here and the CBC Arts article here.
4 comments:
This is disturbing. We have to make it clear to the Chinese that in Canada, our government will not give in to calls for censorship.
CBC denies Chinese pressure in pulling film:
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/274612
The film got pulled due to inaccuracies. For example the organ harveting allegation David Kilgour is promoting has been discredited by multiple undercover investigations.
- US State Dept:
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=April&x=20060416141157uhyggep0.5443231&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/RL33437.pdf (section CRS-7)
- Chinese dissident Harry Wu:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060806_1.htm
http://www.cicus.org/info_eng/artshow.asp?ID=6491
Thanks for the comments. Keep them coming!
"Bobby Fletcher" is in fact one of several pseudonyms used by a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, Charles Liu, who lives in Seattle.
The fact is that the Kilgour/Matas report has never been refuted by anyone. Liu's statement here is based upon Harry Wu's claim to have sent an investigator to the Sujiatun hospital some time after the atrocity was exposed. Not only did the investigator arrive after ample time had elapsed to allow Beijing to remove evidence, but, more importantly, the nature of the crime does not allow for a "smoking gun". the Matas/Kilgour report was based on many kinds of evidence not available to Harry Wu, including telephone discussions with head surgeons in China who were performing the operations.
The U.S. State Department and Embassy have never said the claims are not true; they have simply said they did not have the evidence to substantiate them, which is quite a different thing.
The Matas/Kilgour report has been supported by two other independent studies.
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