The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source.
Do not intentionally promote the Global Times article “Media Reveals Collusion Between the Sentiment of ‘Members of the Democracy Movement’ and ‘Church of the Almighty God.'” (June 6, 2014)
环球时报《媒体披露“民运分子”意欲与“全能神”勾结》一文不要特意炒作。
On June 2, an “open letter” allegedly written by Wang Youcai, a student leader during the 1989 protests, was posted to Huanzhongnet [Chinese]. The post claims that exiled fellow student leader Wang Dan called Wang Youcai to ask him to connect with Zhao Weishan, founder of the Church of the Almighty God, and through Zhao to use the church followers to resist the Chinese Communist Party. The doomsday group, which believes that God returned to earth as a Chinese woman, brutally attacked and killed a woman in a Shandong Province McDonald’s restaurant last week.
The state run Global Times picked up the post from the overseas website Duowei (which is blocked in China) and ran a lengthy piece [Chinese] today on the “collusion” of the pro-democracy movement and the Church of the Almighty God. Wang Dan denies any connection with the church [Chinese], stating in a press conference today that “I haven’t communicated with Wang Youcai for many years, and had no idea about the existence of the ‘Almighty God.’”
The “open letter” remains the top article on Huanzhongnet, followed by “BBC: No Evidence of June 4th Massacre.”
CDT collects directives from a variety of sources and checks them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
WAR IS PEACE • FREEDOM IS SLAVERY • IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
This post was edited to correct the phrase “members of the ‘Democracy Movement’ in the directive.
