2014-07-10
A woman reads a newspaper in a library in Guangzhou, in China's Guangdong province, Oct. 23, 2013.
AFP
Recent rules issued by China's top media regulator to formalize a ban on the reporting of state secrets by the country's tightly controlled media are too vague to be useful to journalists, and will instead leave them vulnerable to individual interpretations, analysts said on Thursday.
In what is seen by some as the latest in a long string of blows to freedom of expression since President Xi Jinping came to power, China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued the ban earlier this week.
"Reporters, editors and [anchors] should not disseminate state secrets in any form via any media and they should not mention such information in their private exchanges or letters," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the new directive as saying.
"Media organizations should ... sign nondisclosure agreements with journalists in accordance with the law," it said.
Journalists are also banned from disclosing secrets in personal communications or via personal blogs and social media accounts.
In addition, they are specifically forbidden to pass them on to foreign news outlets or media organizations.
Rights activists and journalists hit out at the rules as being based on a concept that is dangerously vague.
