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BEIJING (AP) – China’s broadcasting regulator banned BBC World News on Thursday, accusing it of disobeying the guidelines after a controversial report on its treatment of the country’s minority Uighur.
The decision came just days after the British regulator itself revoked the license of Chinese broadcaster CGTN for violating British law on state-backed property and sparked angry accusations of censorship in London.
The move will do little to improve relations between the two countries, which have been increasingly strained by the introduction of a security law by China in the former British colony, Hong Kong.
Britain also banned Chinese telecommunications group Huawei from participating in its 5G network after the United States raised espionage fears.
In an overnight statement, the Beijing National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News reports on China “seriously violated” broadcasting guidelines.
That includes “the requirement that the news be truthful and fair” and not “harm China’s national interests.”
The administrator “does not allow the BBC to continue broadcasting in China and does not accept its new annual broadcast request,” he added.
The BBC said it was “disappointed” with the move, which applies to mainland China, where the channel is already censored and restricted to international hotels.
“The BBC is the world’s most trusted international news broadcaster and reports stories from around the world fairly, impartially and without fear or favor,” said a BBC spokeswoman.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the ban “an unacceptable restriction on press freedom.”
“China has some of the most severe restrictions on media and Internet freedoms in the world, and this latest step will only damage China’s reputation in the eyes of the world,” he added.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price denounced the BBC’s ban and called on China to allow an “informed citizenry” who can freely exchange ideas.
“We call on the People’s Republic of China and other nations with authoritarian controls over their population to allow their full access to the Internet and the media,” Price told reporters, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
British lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, a hawk on UK-China relations who has formed the China Research Group of like-minded MPs, criticized the move as “regrettable and totally surprising”.
“While this is a largely symbolic tit-for-tat retaliation measure, the deteriorating environment for journalism in China is a concern for all of us,” he told AFP.
“The increasingly aggressive approach of the (Chinese Communist Party) towards foreign media, while promoting its own state media around the world, is an issue that deserves much greater scrutiny.”
WITNESS STATEMENT
The BBC also aired a hard-hitting documentary accusing China of covering up the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
She aired her report detailing the harrowing accounts of torture and sexual violence against Uighur women in Chinese camps on February 3.
This June 2019 image shows a facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are being detained, in Artux, north of Kashgar, in China’s western Xinjiang region. (Photo: AFP / Greg Baker)
The extensive investigation based on witness testimonies reported on allegations of systematic rape, sexual abuse and torture of women detained by police and guards in China’s western Xinjiang region.
The region is home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority, and Chinese forces have suffered extensive security crackdown in recent years in response to separatist unrest.
The report described torture with electric shocks, including anal rape by guards with electrified sticks. The women were subjected to gang rape and forced sterilization, witnesses said.
“The screams echoed throughout the building,” said one of them.
Human rights groups believe that at least one million Uighurs and other Turkish-speaking Muslims are imprisoned in camps in Xinjiang.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has dismissed the BBC investigation as “false”. The British government said it displayed “clearly evil acts”, and there was strong condemnation from the US State Department.
But London has resisted pressure to follow current and former US administrations and call the treatment of Uighurs “genocide.”
China is accused of forcing Uighurs to imitate communist propaganda and renounce Islam, forcibly sterilize women and impose a regime of forced labor.
After initially denying the existence of the camps, the Chinese government abruptly recognized them, saying they were vocational training centers aimed at combating Islamic extremism.
China said last week that British regulator Ofcom’s decision to remove CGTN from the airwaves was based on “ideological biases and political reasons.”
Ofcom said CGTN’s licensee Star China Media Ltd had not shown that it had editorial oversight over the network and that a proposed transfer to another media group would still keep it linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
