{"id":54424,"date":"2014-01-28T08:19:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T08:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=54424"},"modified":"2017-03-27T15:08:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T14:08:40","slug":"new-report-slams-deteriorating-press-freedom-china-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=54424","title":{"rendered":"State of press freedom in China and Hong Kong &#8220;reminiscent of the Mao era&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_54432\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-54432\" class=\"wp-image-54432\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/china_shutterstock_150527063.jpg\" alt=\"(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)\" width=\"700\" height=\"513\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/china_shutterstock_150527063.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/china_shutterstock_150527063-300x219.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/china_shutterstock_150527063-250x183.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/china_shutterstock_150527063-273x200.jpg 273w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-54432\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Measures implemented by Chinese authorities in 2013 are &#8220;reminiscent of the Mao era four decades ago,&#8221;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/asiapacific.ifj.org\/en\/articles\/2013-annual-report-on-press-freedom-in-china-and-hong-kong\">the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said in a statement<\/a> accompanying the latest edition of their annual China Press Freedom report.<\/p>\n<p>The press freedom organisation argues that &#8220;Chinese authorities continued to tighten their grip on information and media outlets&#8221; in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, the report &#8212; which four journalists from the region contributed to &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/admin.ifj.org\/assets\/docs\/114\/167\/c08fd72-9f00ea7.pdf\">states that<\/a> new leader Xi Jiping &#8220;set out to strengthen the use of the\u00a0media as a propaganda tool&#8221;. Journalists and bloggers were also forced to make &#8220;televised confessions&#8221; and &#8220;tens of thousands of online\u00a0messages were deleted, and many websites were shut\u00a0down&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The situation for foreign media was also poor, with foreign journalists receiving death threats, and international websites being blocked.<\/p>\n<p>The report also covered Hong Kong and Macau. Journalists in Hong Kong received &#8220;verbal and physical abuse&#8221; and there were attacks on, and threats to,\u00a0media owner and outlets. Macau is experiencing &#8220;a growing trend to self-censorship&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The IFJ made a number of recommendations, including calling on the Chinese government to release jailed journalists, stop &#8220;arbitrary and unexplained employment\u00a0terminations&#8221; and &#8220;order and end to state security misusing the law to\u00a0intimidate and silence journalists.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPress freedom is a human right and the media must be able to perform their professional duties without fear and intimidation,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New report from the International Federation of Journalists slams &#8220;continued deterioration of press freedoms&#8221; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[85,581],"tags":[7364,738,727],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54424"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87850,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54424\/revisions\/87850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}