Canada: Coalition Protests Proposal to Bring CCTV to Canada

On the afternoon of June, 28th, 2006, the Coalition against the CCP's Infiltration, formed with twenty-eight organisations, rallied to protest in front of the headquarters of the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in Ottawa. To carry out the persecution of Falun Gong, the CCP and its state-controlled media have coerced Ms. Jin Jin and her family to take a stand against their will and have utilized it to mislead the public and to incite hatred. Ms. Jin Jin, a software engineer who has immigrated to Toronto, talked about her bitter experience at the rally.

Coalition against the CCP's Infiltration sent message to the CRTC, "Don't let the CCP's hate TV into Canada."

The organiser of the activity said the rally was protesting against Rogers Cable's proposal to bring nine channels of CCTV (Chinese state television) to Canada. They called for the CRTC to take responsibility for blocking out hate propaganda and safeguarding Canadian values.

Witness Exposed How the Mouthpiece of the CCP Fabricated Stories to Mislead the Audience

Ms. Jin Jin talks about how she and her family were coerced to do an interview by CCTV and to take a stand against their will

Ms. Jin Jin, Falun Gong practitioner and software engineer in Toronto, talked about her experience in China. After the CCP launched the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Jin and her family were forced to a brainwashing centre. During one of the sessions, CCTV asked the Party Secretary in Jin's workplace to pressure Jin and her family for an interview. Under the threat of losing their jobs and education, Jin and her family were forced to declare their opposition to Falun Gong.

Jin found out later that their interview was not only broadcast around the nation, but also sent overseas. Jin said, "The end of the programme said that this family started their happy lives after (they gave up the belief). As a matter of fact, in the two years following the interview, my husband was detained for 15 days for appealing for Falun Gong and was fired. My job contract was stopped during my pregnancy because I refused to give up my belief. My brother was sent for forced labour camp for a year and half. My whole family was under strict monitoring around the holidays. Is this what they called 'happy lives?'"

Jin said, "The CCTV personnel called my interview 'voluntary.' I am the one who is most clear about whether it was voluntary. I would like to ask them, are my words under brainwashing, coercion and pressure are more voluntary, or are my words from the bottom of my heart on a free land more voluntary?"

Hate Propaganda Rejected by the Canadian People

Non-governmental organisations provided CRTC with 24 videos as evidence of how the CCP had incited hatred with CCTV programmes. One Canadian TV station that broadcasted one of the videos was punished by the CBSC.

A letter of protest signed by 1,282 individuals prompted the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council on August 16th, 2002, to announce a decision concerning a rebroadcast from CCTV by Talentvision, a Canadian Chinese-language TV station. The CBSC decision stated that Talentvision's broadcasting the CCTV news programme, the "Fu Yi-bin murder case" on December 16th, 2001, had breached four articles of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Code of Ethics and Violence Code and the Radio and Television News Directors Code of (Journalistic) Ethics. Talentvision was directed to air this decision twice within seven days.

"The panel found that the references to Falun Gong in the news report constituted unfair comment, on one hand, and that the repetition of the violent video clips was excessive, on the other. It found no fault with the broadcaster, however, in airing a newscast originating with the state-run television organ, CCTV." (CBSC Decision 01/02-0416+)

To Resist the CCP's Mouthpiece TV Station Is Not an Issue of Freedom of Speech, But an Issue of Responsibility

CCTV (Its subsidiary CTITVC) and Rogers Cable jointly wrote a letter to CRTC on May 26th to refute the Coalition against CCP's Infiltration and attacked the coalition and other organisations. However, they couldn't respond to the charge of inciting hatred, nor could they deny the hateful nature of the CCTV programmes.

Dr. Zhu Xueye, a Falun Gong practitioner from Montreal, said the CCP's media can't be called true media. Jiang Zemin himself called the media the CCP's mouthpiece at an overseas interview. The Chinese people's freedom of speech and freedom of belief are trampled upon because of the two means of the CCP, violence and lies. The CCP-controlled media promote these lies.

Dr. Zhu mentioned the draft law regarding sudden events, recently published by the People's Congress. Chinese media outlets will be fined as much as ten thousand dollars each time they report on "sudden events" without prior authorisation from government officials. Dr. Zhu said just like the CCP's media handling of SARS, if SARS breaks out again, none of the nine TV channels will dare to report the truth. The CCP's mouthpiece will seriously mislead the audience and that could result in even more tragedies. Therefore, resisting the nine channels is not just an issue of freedom of speech, but an issue of responsibility.