AP: China Axes BBC After Falun Gong Item

by TED ANTHONY, Associated Press Writer

Friday, 05-Jul-2002 11:20AM

BEIJING (AP) -- A British Broadcasting Corp. satellite transmission in China was severed after a news program aired "some content that is not allowed," an official with a state-owned broadcaster said Friday.

China International Television Corp., which is responsible for BBC programs in China, said the transmission on the Sinosat 1 satellite was suspended July 1 but would be temporary.

"BBC has violated the contract ... by broadcasting some content that is not allowed," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said it "would not be appropriate" to discuss what part of the broadcast touched a nerve.

The BBC said the cutoff came after a broadcast on the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong's 1997, handover from Britain to China -- a news item that included material on Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government in 1999.

Any reporting of the group's activities risks rankling the government, which perceives it as a direct threat to order and control.

The State Administration of Radio, Television and Film, which oversees broadcasting in China, refused comment Friday.

Other satellites are continuing to bring the BBC into China, a spokeswoman for the broadcaster said Thursday, on customary condition of anonymity.

She said China had offered no information on when the service might be reinstated.

The BBC said the cut off from the Sinosat 1 has affected viewers in China, including those in 60,000 hotel rooms across the country and in many apartment blocks where foreigners live.

China's broadcasters, like its other media, are state-controlled and kept on a tight leash. Foreign media are allowed more leeway, but retributions against reporting that irritates the government are not uncommon.

All licensed foreign channels in the country have been required in recent months to broadcast through a state-owned satellite, allowing the government to switch them off at will.

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/bl/Achina-bbc.R--F_Cl5.html

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