(RSF/IFEX) – On the occasion of the opening of the first national AIDS conference in Beijing, RSF has sent a letter to Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Tang Jiaxuan, expressing its concern over the ban on foreign and Chinese journalists from covering the AIDS epidemic in Henan province (central China). “It is a shame that the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On the occasion of the opening of the first national AIDS conference in Beijing, RSF has sent a letter to Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Tang Jiaxuan, expressing its concern over the ban on foreign and Chinese journalists from covering the AIDS epidemic in Henan province (central China). “It is a shame that the authorities prevent the international media and Chinese reporters from working on an infected blood scandal when the government has officially recognised this tragedy, which has affected thousands of Chinese people,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. The organisation asked the minister to grant accredited journalists the authorisation to travel to Henan province.
According to information gathered by RSF, the authorities have systematically banned foreign media correspondents based in Beijing from travelling to Henan province, which is in the midst of an AIDS epidemic. A European reporter who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons told RSF that he has asked for a permit every month since February 2001. The Foreign Affairs Minister has consistently rejected his request. According to the rules imposed by Beijing, foreign journalists must ask for authorisation to leave Beijing in advance. When they are in a province, they are controlled, sometimes very strictly, by the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s local office.
The Reuters news agency recently recounted the testimony of an AIDS-infected person from Henan province. The individual confirmed that the authorities have not been helping victims. He also said that AIDS activists are under pressure and that local journalists are censored when they try to expose the situation. Finally, a group of health workers and journalists in Beijing are trying to support AIDS victims and distribute information about the epidemic in Henan province.
In 2001, journalists from the BBC, Agence France-Presse, “The New York Times” newspaper and the French daily “Libération” were able to report without authorisation from villages where dozens of people were contaminated during blood donation campaigns organised by the authorities and private firms in the 1990s.
In August, two German reporters were detained for several hours by police in Henan province. Harald Mass, a correspondent from the daily “Frankfurter Rundschau”, and Katharina Hesse, a photographer for the weekly magazine “Newsweek”, were interrogated by policemen because they were found without authorisation near a village where many HIV-infected persons were living.
Foreign journalists in China work under the authorities’ very strict control. Arrests, threats and shadowing are common for media professionals who want to cover banned issues such as the Falun Gong, democratic movements, catastrophes not covered by official media outlets, organ trafficking and Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian separatist movements.
