SBS has suspended its broadcast of Chinese state-controlled news services after receiving a complaint from a human rights organisation that the networks had broadcast dozens of forced confessions, including one from a British journalist.
The public broadcaster confirmed it would suspend broadcasting China Central Television (CCTV) and China Global Television Network (CGTN) news content while it reviewed a complaint letter it had received from Safeguard Defenders.
A spokesman said SBS, to the best of its knowledge, had not aired the forced confessions and the complaint letter did not allege that it had.
SBS has suspended its broadcast of Chinese TV networks CGTN and CCTV while it reviews a complaint that the media outlets have broadcast forced confessions.Credit:Louie Douvis
“Given the serious concerns it raises, and the complexity of the material involved, we have made the decision to suspend the broadcast of the overseas-sourced CGTN and CCTV news bulletins while we undertake an assessment of these services,” an SBS spokesman said on Friday.
SBS’s World Watch program, which features news bulletins from countries around the world, had carried CGTN, a 15-minute English service, and CCTV, a 30-minute Mandarin language service.
The public broadcaster reported on Friday that it had received a letter from Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organisation, which claimed CCTV had broadcast the forced confessions of some 56 people between 2013 and 2020.
“These broadcasts involved the extraction, packaging and airing of forced and false confessions of prisoners held under conditions of duress and torture,” SBS reported the letter said.
“These offences involved the airing of ‘confessions’ extracted from suspects long before any indictment, trial or conviction, and in many instances while the victim was detained incommunicado, with no access to legal counsel, at secret locations.
“A significant number of these ‘confessions’ are broadcast not only in China, but internationally via CCTV-4 and CGTN.”
