The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has come under fire from Chinese officials and its media after Britain’s media regulator withdrew the TV licence issued to Chinese state media outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN).
The war of words between the two countries began after Britain’s media outlets had expressed concerns on several issues concerning the People Republic of China, including Communist Party of China’s latest crackdown on democracy activists in the former British colony of Hong Kong, the treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region and also on the concerns over the security of Huawei technology.
The escalations started after Britain’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) revoked the licence of Chinese state broadcaster CGTN saying that China’s ruling Communist Party has ultimate editorial responsibility for the channel.
However, angered by British regulators’ response, China’s foreign ministry had issued a statement accusing the British Broadcasting Corporation of pushing “fake news” on China over Covid-19 outbreak. The Chinese foreign ministry also demanded an apology claiming that the broadcaster had politicised the pandemic and “rehashed theories about covering up by China”.
On Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin also targeted Ofcom ruling as “politicising the issue on a technical point” and threatened that China reserves the right to make a “necessary response”.
The BBC shot back at the Chinese authorities saying its reporting is fair and unbiased.
Editor of Chinese mouthpiece threatens BBC with ‘Beijing’s Punishment’
Not just Chinese political establishment, even CPC’s mouthpiece threatened British authorities and media for reporting facts about the Wuhan virus and the atrocities carried out by the Chinese government against the minority Uyghur Muslims in Xinjian province.
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Communist Party-backed tabloid the Global Times, who has a habit of giving empty threats on social media, claimed that the BBC was closely working with the US and UK intelligence agencies. It has become a bastion of the Western public opinion war against China, he added.
However, he did not stop there. Threatening the BBC and its officials for their reportage on Uyghurs, Hu Xijin said that the BBC had spread rumours that Uygur women have been systematically raped in China. However, they failed to provide any evidence angering Chinese society, he added.
Further, he added that the BBC had almost become a rumour mill in its China reporting and should report facts or it will not be far away from ‘Beijing’s punishment’.
The Chinese establishment’s angry response against the BBC comes after the British media outlet had reported about the disappearances, torture, repeated rape of the Uygur women in the concentration camps in Xinjiang by the Chinese authorities.
Disappearances, torture, repeated rape: Chinese men brutalise Uyghur Muslim women
In a recent revelation by news network BBC, the former detainees of the concentration camps in Xinjiang had spoken out against the brutal sexual torture at the hands of the Chinese regime. A 42-year-old former detainee named Tursunay Ziawudun had stated excruciating details about sexual abuse and organised rape by Han men.
She said that Uyghur women were forcibly taken out of their jail cells each night in a dark room and subsequently raped by several masked Chinese men. The victim admitted that she was gang-raped on three occasions. According to Ziawudun, several women who were forcibly taken away from their cells at night never returned.
“They had an electric stick, I didn’t know what it was, and it was pushed inside my genital tract, torturing me with an electric shock,” she reminisced.
She narrated, “They don’t only rape but also bite all over your body, you don’t know if they are human or animal. They didn’t spare any part of the body, they bit everywhere leaving horrible marks. It was disgusting to look at. I’ve experienced that three times. And it is not just one person who torments you, not just one predator. Each time they were two or three men.” Ziawudun was released from the camp in December 2018.
The BBC’s video: Ghulzira Auyelkhan tells on camera how she, a female camp detainee, was given the job of handcuffing naked Uyghur girls to beds so that the Han men could go in and rape them. The men paid money to pick which girl they wanted to rape.
— Adrian Zenz (@adrianzenz) February 2, 2021
https://t.co/hRD6c9LHeh pic.twitter.com/yUKh7EWlv6
Another woman from Kazakhstan, Gulzira Auelkhan, had told the BBC that she was coerced into stripping Uyghur women naked, handcuffing and presenting them to Chinese men. She was also forced to clean the rooms after the men systematically raped the women. She added that the perpetrators would pay money to choose the ‘prettiest’ detainee.