In case you've forgotten that communist China is a dictatorship, here's a reminder:
Chinese media outlets will be fined up to $12,500 each time they report on "sudden events" without prior authorization from government officials, according to a draft law under review by the Communist Party-controlled legislature.
The law, revealed today in most state-run newspapers, would give government officials a powerful new tool to restrict coverage of mass outbreaks of disease, riots, strikes, accidents and other events that the authorities prefer to keep secret. Officials in charge of propaganda already exercise considerable sway over the Chinese media, but their power tends to be informal, not codified in law. . . . .
Editors and journalists say they receive constant bulletins from the Propaganda Department forbidding reporting on an ever-expanding list of taboo topics, including "sudden events." But a few leading newspapers and magazines occasionally defy such informal edicts. They may find it more costly to ignore the rules if they risked being assessed financial penalties. . . . .
While state media did not offer a definition of "sudden events," in the past they have included natural disasters, major accidents, public health or social safety incidents.
Journalists say local authorities are likely to interpret the law broadly, giving officials leeway to restrict coverage of any social and political disturbance that they consider embarrassing, like demonstrations over land seizures, environmental pollution or corruption.
Last fall, the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets removed some information about natural disasters, including the death toll, from a list of topics that government agencies had the power to treat as official secrets. The move was viewed positively at the time as an attempt to provide the public with more timely and accurate information about such disasters.
The declassification came after central and local government authorities initially covered up the SARS respiratory epidemic in 2003. Health authorities later acknowledged that the cover-up made the SARS outbreak more severe.
The new law would appear to undercut the spirit of that revision, forcing journalists and editors to seek prior approval before writing about disease outbreaks. . . . .
This is how communism, supposedly the people's paradise, works in the real world:
First the government puts its tight steely grip around everything and everyone. It destroys the free market and all the prosperity it brings. Personal liberty is tightly curtailed. Peaceful dissenters are imprisoned. Basic human rights like having more than one child are taken away. Then, completing the repression, the government forbids anyone from reporting on the resulting misery.
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