New Chinese Law Designed To Smother Reporting On Disasters - CSM

[hatrack]

BEIJING – China is considering a new Emergency Response Law that would give local governments the right to "manage news media reports" about emergencies. The law would fine news outlets up to $12,500 for reporting on those events without permission or in a way that "causes serious consequences." The proposed changes, first floated in late June, follow a string of reports about disasters - particularly coal mining accidents - that has embarrassed officials, and in some cases led to legal action.

China's justice system dropped a rare hammer in June on 18 men, including a high-ranking government official, accused in a bribery scheme exposed by a local newspaper that may have led to the deaths of 121 coal miners. Last August, the China Business Times issued a stunning investigative report following the deadly mine flood in Guangdong Province that implicated the owner in a multimillion dollar bribery scheme to keep the facility open despite failed safety tests.

The proposed media legislation does not define what constitutes "serious consequences." Absent further definition, critics say, officials could conceivably use the legislation to smother reporting on any events that might reflect badly on them, or on China in general. Draconian management of information is a time-honored tradition in China, where the pen has always garnered roughly the same respect as the sword. But China's leaders have rarely been so open about major media controls - and have never publicly considered writing them into its legal code. "This is definitely new," says Wang Feng, a Beijing-based journalist.

Experts either don't know or aren't willing to say exactly why the government is considering the move. Journalists themselves offer one of the most compelling theories: The law, many say, is a desperate move from a government nervous that current measures aren't enough to contain the country's increasingly independent and sophisticated newspapers.

EDIT

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0824/p07s02-woap.html

[villager]

1. Are they using the Bush model? Or is Bush using theirs?

n/t

[NNadir]

2. New law? Banqiao was the worst energy disaster in human history.

(I am speaking of instanteous events and not global climate change which is a continuous event.)

Hundreds of thousands of people died. It was in 1975, not so long ago. If you mention it, almost no one has heard of it.

This is not necessarily a new law. It's at least 31 years old.