2015-06-03
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Rescuers tap the hull of the Eastern Star, signaling for survivors, June 1, 2015.
AFP
China’s official censors moved on Wednesday to limit media coverage and online comments linked to the Yangtze River cruise-ship disaster, as rescue workers began cutting into the hull of the stricken vessel, with some 400 people still missing, feared drowned.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s powerful propaganda department issued a directive banning Chinese journalists from traveling to the site of the wreck of the Eastern Star cruise ship in the central province of Hubei to cover the disaster.
In a directive leaked and then deleted on the Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo on Wednesday, authorities reminded all media outlets in China that all coverage of the ship’s capsize in reportedly freak weather conditions late on Monday must be limited to approved copy published by the official Xinhua news agency, or state-run broadcaster CCTV.
“When the Sewol sank on April 16, 2014, the three main South Korean TV networks, KBS, SBS, and MBC interrupted scheduled programming,” Sina Weibo user @sunlyxiaomei tweeted, referring to the earlier sinking of a South Korean ferry.
“On June 2, 2015, the central propaganda department issued a directive: regarding the Eastern Star capsize incident, all provinces, regions and cities are forbidden to send reporters to the scene to conduct interviews,” the user tweeted.
“Those who are already at the scene must be immediately recalled,” the directive said.
“All media outlets are to use unified copy from Xinhua news agency and footage from CCTV,” it said.
The user commented wryly: “It reminds me of the high-speed rail crash [in July 2011, south of Shanghai]. The truth will not out.”
Lack of information
According to the China Digital Times website, which collates leaked directives from the propaganda department, the directive was issued on Monday, soon after the Eastern Star went down in 15 meters of water in Hubei’s Jianli county.
Relatives of those missing have complained of a lack of information, as around 1,000 officials were mobilized to receive them and offer support.
A relative of a missing passenger, who gave only his surname Fu, said he had traveled on his own to Jianli county in search of news of his father, but that his movements are now highly restricted.
“The authorities are stopping and holding any relatives who go there,” Fu said.
“If you show up at a hotel, they won’t book you in, but they won’t let you leave, either,” he said.
Some relatives of the missing scuffled with officials in Shanghai amid growing frustration at the lack of information, Reuters reported.
Others took to the streets near the Shanghai municipal government in protest, the agency said.
A woman who gave only her surname Xiang said three of her relatives had been aboard the Eastern Star.
“They saved a man yesterday, who is one of my relatives, but there are still two more they haven’t found,” Xiang said.
