Chinese media’s protest against censorship continues

Beijing: A protest by journalists of a state-run Chinese weekly against official interference entered the second day on Tuesday amid tacit support from other media outlets, notwithstanding the ruling CPC’s assertion that it had an “absolute and unshakable” control over them.

Meanwhile, several Chinese media outlets have appeared to back journalists at a weekly newspaper embroiled in a row over censorship, a news channel reported.

News portals, however, carried a state-sanctioned editorial criticising the journalists. But, they added a disclaimer saying that the piece did not mean that they shared the views expressed in it, the report said.

Reports from Guangzhou said protests continued for the second day on Tuesday by the journalists and police intervened to stop scuffles between scribes and a small group of government supporters who appeared on the scene with Mao’s portraits.

But the most decisive response came from the Communist Party of China (CPC), which in a memo circulated to various media units firmly stated that the official media would remain in its complete control.

“Hostile foreign forces had interfered in the Southern Weekend incident,” the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post quoted the memo as saying.

The memo requires officials to continue to prevent editors and journalists from expressing online support for Southern Weekend.

It also asked newspapers to print an editorial published by the state-run newspaper the Global Times which ruled out freedom of press.

It claimed that former employees of the Southern Weekly and activists, including the US-settled blind Chinese rights activists Chen Guangcheng, were “among those who avidly promote the issue online.”

“Their campaign, ostensibly aiming at specific officials, actually targets China’s entire media system,” it said.

For media professionals, it is clear that under the reality of China’s current state of affairs, the country is unlikely to have the “absolutely free media” that is dreamed of by those activists, the editorial said calling for “soul- searching