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Thursday, January 04, 2007

CRTC Ignores Own Conclusion, Accepts Hate Inciting Channel

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Media Advisory

Decision Leaves Canadians Wide Open to Abuse

Toronto - Canadians Against Propaganda (CAP) is bewildered and stunned by CRTC’s decision to accept a Chinese state run channel that it has deemed abusive and hate inciting on multiple occasions, putting Canadians at clear and obvious risk. CAP will pursue all avenues to reverse this highly irresponsible decision. The long awaited decision was oddly released on Friday, December 22, 2006.

Taped evidence of programming on China’s state run CCTV4 was deemed by CRTC on multiple occasions to air programming which exposed “the targeted group or individual to hatred or contempt” and even “threaten the physical security” of targeted groups and individuals..

CCTV4 is owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), well known to be one of the most brutal human rights abusers in the world. CCTV4 is one of the CCP’s main tools of propaganda against targeted groups, fuelling ongoing persecutions against Chinese people, including democracy activists, Tibetans, Falun Gong, Christian house churches, Muslim Uighurs and others. The scope and brutality of the CCP’s human rights atrocities are universally accepted by governments and human rights organizations. Why would CRTC ignore its own conclusions of multiple hate incitement and accept this state run channel?

Without giving clear rationale, CRTC dismissed the evidence, stating that since the multiple offences occurred in 1999 and 2001, the evidence was not “typical of the content currently aired on CCTV4”. CRTC has not monitored or researched the current content in any way. On what do they base this dangerous assumption?

CAP spokesperson Elaine Xie responded, “How can they assume that this is not typical? This is a multiple offender. To randomly assume that offenses were not committed by this channel during the time period when no evidence was found goes against reason, common sense and CRTC’s own findings.”

CAP’s search for evidence was surprisingly successful considering that the required taped evidence would have to come from programming spontaneously taped from television. Due to this difficulty, CAP couriered a written request to China International Television Corporation (CITVC), which represents CCTV4 along with eight other channels proposed to CRTC, collectively known as the Great Wall Package. CAP requested copies of six specific programs, including the times and dates of two news reports from November, 2005, offering to pay all shipping costs. CITVC (also owned by the CCP) did not respond to the request.

Xie commented, “The evidence proves that CCTV4 incited hatred repeatedly several years ago, yet CITVC ignored requests for recent programming while labeling our evidence ‘stale dated’. CRTC then disregards multiple violations, and accepts the hate inciting channel (CCTV4) on faith. CCTV4 has not acknowledged any wrongdoing or promised to adhere to the rules whatsoever. What is CRTC basing this blind faith on?”

The policies of persecution by the CCP have not changed since 2001 and thus the obligation by state run channels such as CCTV4 to encourage and support these persecutions likewise remains. This clearly puts every Canadian who is a member of these targeted groups at risk.

The CRTC decision stated, “Removal of a service is a remedy that the Commission will be prepared to exercise if it finds that abusive comment has been aired on the service while it is distributed in Canada.”

Xie commented, “This comment is meaningless considering these channels would air with no monitoring whatsoever. CRTC is looking away from these harmful violations and protecting the interests of Rogers executives while ignoring the safety of Canadians. Who will be responsible when more hate incitement airs?”

Issued by Canadians against Propaganda, contact: Elaine Xie: 416-827-3908

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