Beijing (Reuters) – Foreign journalists complain about a “rapid decline in freedom of the press” in China.
Measures against the coronavirus pandemic, restrictions on entry and intimidation were used last year to limit reporting by foreign media, said the Club of Foreign Correspondents in the People’s Republic on the basis of 150 responses to a survey in Beijing on Monday. “All branches of state power, including the surveillance systems created to contain the coronavirus, were used to harass and intimidate journalists, their Chinese colleagues and their interviewees,” the statement said.
For the third year in a row, none of the correspondents or board leaders said that working conditions had improved. Journalists who worked in Xinjiang Province were particularly harassed. Human rights groups accuse the Chinese government of violating human rights when dealing with the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.
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