Thirteen people who describe themselves as “victims of forced confessions broadcast on Chinese television” are urging European satellite operator Eutelsat to reconsider carrying Chinese channels China Global Television Network (CGTN) and China Central Television 4 (CCTV4).
The letter published by human rights watchdog Safeguard Defenders details a list of contraventions that the signatories have said China is guilty of using to extort confessions from them and “refuse the right to a fair trial.”
“We are asking you ... to determine whether television providers in democratic societies ought to continue to be morally complicit in the broadcast of information that is intentionally twisted and obtained through torture,” the group said.
“We are only a dozen victims able to speak out... Many other victims are in prison. A few have been executed,” the group added.
“The victims have no way of demanding reparations. The only way to stop this is for television regulators to investigate and take measures,” it said.
The letter said that Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service stopped using content from Chinese state-run television in March, pending a review of human rights concerns.
The UK also fined CGTN for partiality and violation of privacy, and removed it from the airwaves, a ban that pushed the channel to set up shop in France.
French regulator, the Superior Audiovisual Council, determined in March that CGTN met the technical criteria necessary for broadcasting, but just this week Safeguard Defenders submitted two complaints against the channel.
One cited an allegedly coerced interview with a Uighur child and the other was a defamation complaint from German researcher Adrian Zenz, whose reports on the treatment of Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang have drawn rebukes from Beijing.
The signatories are from China and other countries, including Chinese human rights lawyers Bao Longjun (包龍軍) and Jiang Tianyong (江天勇) who have been targeted by Chinese authorities.
Simon Cheng (鄭文傑), a former British consulate staffer in Hong Kong who was granted asylum in the UK after allegedly being tortured by Chinese secret police, also signed the letter.
Also giving support was Swedish rights advocate and Safeguard Defenders cofounder Peter Dahlin, who spent three weeks in jail in 2016 before being expelled from China as a national security threat.
Angela Gui, daughter of Gui Minhai (桂民海), who published in Hong Kong until he was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year, signed on behalf of her father.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
RSS