A Chinese cable television service broadcast censored Tiananmen Square Massacre pictures and messages condemning the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), locals said, in what appeared to be a rare hacking attack.
Viewers in the eastern city of Wenzhou on Friday used social media to post images of television slogans referring to the CCP as “bandits,” and photographs of the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing.
Such images are almost never shown by media in China, where the CCP censors anti-government messages and references to incidents it deems sensitive, such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre when the army killed hundreds — by some estimates, thousands — of protesters.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the messages, which appeared on several different channels available through a local cable broadcaster, though Internet users speculated that the provider had been hacked.
A Wenzhou resident surnamed Gu said that he had turned on his television on Friday evening to be greeted with a photo of a tank on Tiananmen square.
“I found it irritating... it doesn’t feel right to vent your opinions by sacrificing others’ interests,” he said, adding that similar images and anti-communist slogans were broadcast for about four hours.
Another local resident, who declined to be named, said that his TV had shown a slogan saying: “Bandit Communists you’ve done too many evil deeds and now you’re feeling guilty.”
The Wenzhou branch of China Cable said on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter: “At the moment some areas of Wenzhou city are receiving unusual broadcasts; technical staff are currently trying to solve this issue. We hope viewers will understand.”
Several photos posted on Sina Weibo — which were later deleted — showed a TV screen displaying a banner which read “Free Wang Bingzhang,” referring to a Chinese pro-democracy activist jailed for life in 2003.
“Communist bandits are the real criminals,” a message shown in the corner of one viewer’s screen said.
Another photograph showed the channel displaying the iconic “Tank Man” photo from the 1989 crackdown, showing a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks.
Cable viewers also saw a message reading: “Friends, don’t co-operate with Communist devils,” imposed on top of a broadcast of a basketball match.
Subscribers were also shown graphic images showing apparent human rights abuses in the country, such as a protester being squashed under a truck.
The CCP does not tolerate organized dissent, and has regularly jailed members of any group which challenges its right to rule the country.
Internet users expressed surprise at the broadcasts, which were said to have ended late Friday, with some speculating that hackers were behind the attack.
Members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been banned in China since the late 1990s, have occasionally been accused of hacking local broadcasters in China to broadcast messages accusing the government of persecution.
‘SPIKES’: Rudy Giuliani at a hearing asked about voting data in Pennsylvania, with a witness saying that 570,000 votes they selected were for Biden and 3,200 for Trump US president-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday said that Americans “won’t stand” for attempts to derail the US election outcome, as US President Donald Trump called for results to be overturned. Biden said in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, that Americans “have full and fair and free elections, and then we honor the results.” “The people of this nation and the laws of the land won’t stand for anything else,” he said. However, Trump is challenging the results, with lawsuits under way in several states. “We have to turn the election over,” he told a hearing in Pennsylvania. “This election was rigged.” “All we need is
Hundreds of flights at one of China’s busiest airports were canceled yesterday as Shanghai raced to bring a local COVID-19 outbreak under control. Health officials have tested thousands of staff at Pudong International Airport since a small cluster of COVID-19 cases in the city was linked to several cargo handlers. China — where the virus first emerged late last year — has largely brought the COVID-19 pandemic under control through travel restrictions and lockdowns, but it is now battling a number of domestic outbreaks in different cities. Shanghai has reported seven local infections linked to the airport this month, with most cases found
It is not often a top bureaucrat in Singapore publicly discloses personal vulnerabilities, but the novel coronavirus pandemic is upending what is seldom discussed outside close circles. Singaporean Economic Development Board Managing Director Chng Kai Fong (莊凱峰), a former top aide to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍), opened up about his mental health struggle during the pandemic at a technology conference held virtually on Sunday. Chng began his online panel at the She Loves Tech conference by this year as “an unprecedented year in terms of personal crisis.” In April, he lost his brother-in-law to cancer, while a close family member
SIGNIFICANT RULING: That male prisoners are denied a choice as to their hair length suggests they are treated less favourably than female prisoners, the judges wrote Prison staff were wrong to cut the hair of a former Hong Kong legislator known for his long locks, the territory’s top court said yesterday, in the second significant ruling against authorities this month. The decision came as powerful establishment voices called for an overhaul of the judiciary — something opponents fear could muzzle the Hong Kong legal system’s vaunted independence as Beijing cracks down on its critics. The ruling by the Hong Kong Final Court of Appeal is the culmination of a long legal battle by former Hong Kong legislator Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄), 64, who served a brief jail sentence in
RSS