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Hong Kong journalists slam China's plans to restrict media The Hong Kong Journalists Association has condemned China's plans to tighten controls on the mainland's media, with the introduction of fines for reporting unauthorised information. The standing committee of China's Parliament is considering a bill on how the Government responds to emergencies such as industrial accidents, natural disasters or health and social crises. The draft law says media outlets which breach China's vague censorship rules by reporting such incidents without approval may be fined between 50,000 and 100,000 yuan ($8,500-$17,000). "[We] strongly protest the law, which represents a serious setback for the Chinese media freedom... depriving the rights of people who want to know the facts," the association's chairwoman Cheung Ping-ling said. She said in a statement that coverage of emergencies was an important part of news reporting, and that she feared the law would be used as a tool to censor the media. "We strongly oppose any laws that would damage media freedom and demand the Chinese authorities to cancel immediately its plans to introduce the law," she said. The law would not affect reporting on Hong Kong, a territory which is governed by separate legislation. The draft legislation stresses that local governments in China should disseminate information on emergencies in a timely manner, but not if the reports would affect the handling of a crisis. The official Xinhua news agency said the decision to introduce the law was made because of errors in handling the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak. SARS originated in China and the nation was widely condemned for initially covering up the disease, enabling the virus to spread more easily. The planned law comes against the backdrop of what foreign rights and media groups have described as a sustained media crackdown, including the jailing of Chinese journalists who have exposed scandals involving government officials. International media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said last month that at least 32 journalists were in prison in China as of early this year. It brands the communist rulers as one of the world's "enemies" of the Internet. ---------------------------------------------------
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