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.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS