2003 Annual report of Reporters Without BordersExposes Persecution of Falun Gong in China [Excerpt]

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Nine members of the outlawed Falun Gong were charged by a court in the northeastern city of Changchun on 18 April with [fabricated charge] because of their alleged role in the [interception] of a cable TV network in Changchun and Songyuan in early March to broadcast two documentaries about the persecution of the Falun Gong since July 1999. Six others were arrested in the following weeks. The TV [broadcast on exposing the crimes of Jiang Zemin regime's persecution of Falun Gong] had enraged the authorities. The police, especially "Bureau 610," had spent several weeks hunting down Falun Gong followers in Changchun. [...] On 21 April, the Falun Gong announced that it had [broadcast in] another cable TV network, this time in the northeastern city of Harbin, again transmitting a documentary about the persecution of Falun Gong followers. [...]The Falun Gong claimed that Luo Gan, the head of public security in China, had gone to Harbin and had demanded the arrest of 6,000 Falun Gong members by June. The trial of the 11 men and four women arrested in the Changchun incident began on 18 September. On 20 September, after [show trial by the totalitarian regime], they were given sentences ranging from four to 20 years in prison.

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Four Falun Gong members received sentences ranging from seven to 16 years in prison from a court in the southwestern city of Chongqing on 18 May for [broadcasting in] a local television channel in January in order to broadcast a programme [clarifying the facts of Falun Gong and exposing the inhumane persecution of Falun Gong in China]. [...]

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The authorities on 23 June [fabricated charges against] the Falun Gong of hijacking the Sinosat satellite signal, thereby disrupting the programming of nine national channels and six regional channels, replacing it with black screens or pictures of Falun Gong meetings. [...] The official news agency Xinhua [told lies that the] signals had come from Taiwan but this was denied by officials in Taipei and Taiwanese members of the Falun Gong. [...] There had also been a further incident in the week following 23 June, in which a Falun Gong message was transmitted on a TV signal in Laiyang in the eastern province of Shandong. The authorities said the message had appeared on screen for one minute, while a Hong Kong-based human rights group said it stayed on screen for 15 minutes. The same group reported a similar TV [broadcasting] on 27 June in the coastal city of Yantai.

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Falun Gong members [broadcasted in] local television's Channel 5 in Baiyin in the central province of Gansu on 17 August. Baiyin residents said programming was interrupted for 10-20 minutes by pictures of Falun Gong members being persecuted by the police. The local newspapers did not report the incident.

The Hong Kong government on 24 September published a draft national security law proposing imprisonment and other heavy penalties for treason, secession, subversion and theft of state secrets. Presented as an implementation of article 23 of the Basic Law negotiated before Hong Kong's handover in 1997, the draft law had Beijing's stamp and was widely criticised as a threat to individual freedoms, especially press freedom, as the concept of state secret was defined in the vaguest of terms and could be used to arrest journalists for publishing all manner of information. Furthermore, with penalties of up to seven years in prison for publishing reports that incite treason, secession or subversion, the law would reinforce self-censorship on subjects considered sensitive by the mainland government. After its publication, senior Hong Kong officials warned journalists about the way they use press freedom. Justice minister Elsie Leung on 17 October said any report containing unsourced confidential information would henceforth be treated as a "state secret." The Hong Kong Journalists Association and the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association addressed a statement to the authorities on 24 November calling for the elimination of the more restrictive measures from the proposed law. It was signed by 879 Hong Kong journalist and was backed by 26 international press and human rights groups.

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