Enlarge image
BBC office in China (archive image)
Photo: NOEL CELIS / AFP
The relationship between China and the BBC has been tense for a long time.
Authorities banned BBC World News in February and a correspondent for the British broadcaster left the country at the end of March because his security was threatened after intimidation, harassment and surveillance.
Journalists had previously complained about a "rapid decline in media freedom" in China.
Now the dispute is apparently getting worse.
China's leadership accuses the BBC of spreading misinformation in connection with its coverage of the recent floods in central China.
The British broadcaster had "attacked and slandered China and deviated significantly from journalistic standards," said Foreign Office spokesman Zhao Lijian.
The BBC had previously urged Beijing to take action against the harassment of its reporters by Chinese nationalists.
While reporting on the flood disaster with at least 99 dead, journalists from several foreign media outlets were harassed online and in person by angry people.
The German journalist Mathias Bölinger, who reports for Deutsche Welle, among others, was recently harassed.
Passers-by had asked him, among other things, whether he was "that BBC guy."
The Chinese Communist Party Youth Association in Henan on Tuesday called on its 1.6 million followers to follow the movements of BBC reporters.
BBC correspondents then received death threats from nationalist Internet users.
Foreign office spokesman considers hatred to be justified
Journalists from the AFP news agency were also forced by bystanders to delete recordings when they reported about a flooded subway in Zhengzhou city.
The BBC had complained that its reporters had been verbally abused on online networks.
Foreign Office spokesman Zhao did not condemn the hostility.
On the contrary: the BBC deserves "to be unpopular with the Chinese public," he said.
There is “no hatred without a reason”.
According to Zhao, foreign correspondents in China enjoy "an open and free environment for reporting."
Organizations for freedom of the press, however, criticize the increasing restrictions on the work of foreign journalists.
Reporters are followed on the street, insulted online and often not given a visa.
fek / AFP
