Coronavirus: RSF calls for vigilance in the face of false information conveyed by China

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for vigilance over the false information spread by the Beijing regime, which is waging a veritable worldwide campaign of disinformation about the coronavirus.

Since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, which has already killed nearly 150,000 people and infected more than two million others, the Beijing regime has been engaged in a real global campaign of disinformation intended to cover the voices critics who denounce its responsibility for the spread of the virus, due to its censorship policy which has delayed the implementation of sanitary measures. According to Chinese officials, the coronavirus was thus ” imported to Wuhan by the American army “ or ” circulated in Italy before the doctors discovered the epidemic in China “ . So many accusations which are notsupported by no facts .

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for vigilance over the false information carried by the Beijing regime, whose international propaganda apparatus is getting stronger every day, as shown in the report “The New World Information Order according to China ‘published in 2019.

Under the pretext of” re-establishing the truth “on the coronavirus, Beijing distills a flood of lies and approximations aimed at discrediting the work of journalists and sowing doubt about the veracity of the facts they report, indignant Cédric Alviani , director of the East Asia office of Reporters Without Borders (RSF). It is vital that the public is not fooled by Chinese propaganda and privileges information from media respectful of journalistic principles. “

On April 14, the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, was thus summoned by the Quai d’Orsay after having disseminated on the internet page of his mission in France and on the Twitter social network false information implicating the nursing staff and a coalition of French parliamentarians. Washington also had to demand an explanation on March 13 after two senior officials from the Chinese foreign ministry, Zhao Linjian and Hua Chunying , suggested that the virus was from the United States .

At the end of March, the China Global Television Network (CGTN), an international audiovisual network , controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, had diverted remarks made by the director of an Italian pharmacological research institute, Giuseppe Remuzzi, to make him say that the epidemic of coronavirus had started in Italy a month before its appearance in China.

At the same time, Chinese ambassadors and the propaganda media Global Times have embarked on a veritable crusade against Western journalists whom they accuse of systematically “lying” to make China bear responsibility for the pandemic.

China is among the last in the RSF World Press Freedom Ranking 2019 , 177th out of 180.