Dharamshala October 10: Protestors from Belgian Friends of Tibet gathered at the European Commission in Brussels yesterday to protest against Chinese government’s censorship on New Tang Dynasty Television which was broadcast in China through a French Satellite Company Eutelsat.
NTDTV broadcasts were stopped 7 weeks before the beginning of the Olympic games. It was the only independent TV channel in Chinese language broadcast in China, according to Inge Hermans, president of the Belgium friends of Tibet. NTDTV extensively covered the Tibet unrest following March uprisings.
The protest was organized jointly by NTDTV and de Vrienden van Tibet Belgium (Friends of Tibet, Belgium).
The protestors demanded freedom of press in China. Referring to the milk poisoning in China, Hermans said that China as well as Eutelsat is responsible for the ‘inhuman suffering that was perpetrated on many innocent Chinese children and their parents because the Chinese government fears the open and honest dialogue that NTDTV had exemplified.’
We support NTDTV in their attempt to resume their broadcasts in China, said Hermans. “We urge European Parliament to hold Eutelsat accountable and responsible for the resumption of NTDTV broadcasts in China so that Chinese people can again enjoy the objective programmes that this channel provided.
Eutelsat attributed the abrupt end of NTDTV’s transmissions in China to technical problems but Hermans said it was not true. “The Chinese government wants to monopolize the press and has done so at all costs, including spying on internet users and illegally wiretapping phone conversations.”
Reporters within China are regularly arrested, intimidated and in many respects thwarted in their attempts to accurately and openly report events, said Hermans. “China jails more journalists than any other country in the world and ranks 157th on world lists regarding abuses against journalists.”
“As we speak, there is a “total media black-out” in force in Tibet and her surrounding regions,” Hermans said in her speech at the gathering.
Phayul Bureau Report
