CNN bashes China for Tiananmen coverage blackout

MUMBAI: CNN has criticised China’s government censors for repeatedly blacking out the channel’s coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. Out of a series of programmes the channel aired on Tiananmen, the only one that escaped the scissors was Chinese returning home from exile to do business.

“Audio and video have been repeatedly blacked out — sometimes selectively, but most of the time completely — whenever CNN shows reports on the crackdown,” said a report published on the channel’s website.

“Live reports from Beijing and Hong Kong, as well as interviews with guests, including Columbia University’s Andrew Nathan and former U.S. ambassador to China James Lilley, have all been blacked out,” CNN accused.

In 1989 also, Beijing authorities had blacked out CNN’s live coverage of the pro-democracy protests. The government had blocked telecasts of footages showing demonstrators crowding central Beijing and occupying Tiananmen Square, and military tanks and troops crushing the protest movement.