Updated version of Falun Gong doc to air Tuesday
A controversial documentary, Beyond The Red Wall: The Persecution of Falun Gong, will be broadcast on The Lens this Tuesday after it was pulled earlier this month following a complaint from the Chinese embassy.
The switch came after the Chinese Embassy contacted the CBC, said CBC spokesman Jeff Keay. He said CBC officials learned that a Falun Gong publication had been running stories that touted the broadcaster as a supporter of the spritual movement.
The CBC requested certain edits to the film and Rowe complied.
The head of English television, Richard Stursberg, said the CBC made a mistake in approving a controversial documentary without proper vetting.
“We had made a mistake. We [initially] signed off on the documentary and said ‘That’s OK,” Mr. Stursberg told the National Post editorial board. “But when we looked further into it, and got our guys in Beijing to look at it and got our head of documentaries to really focus on it, and there were some questions raised about its accuracy or the ability to confirm all the claims that were being made.”
“The suggestion that somehow the CBC would spend its time bending to the pressure of the Chinese government really takes your breath away,” he said.
Nothing has been cut out of the documentary; between three and four per cent of the film was affected, including inserting content that supports claims that the self-immolation of Falun Gong protestors in Tiananmen Square was a hoax perpetrated by Chinese officials.
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Wow. Zero comments here ? What’s going on ?
censorship
More like uncertainty.
No…I don’t think it’s censorship. Colour me naive because I really DO believe in the integrity of sites like this. But I think there HAS been a Code of Silence imposed on this issue from the top down. Senior management is playing with real dynamite here. If the Chinese really DID get a preview DvD (from someone inside the corp) or influenced the script in any manner that’s not only an abrogation of the CBC Policy Book but also a breach of contract with the producer.
I don’t know how many folks on this site are also part of the DOC Association and hence have access to their web postings…but there is an absolutely vitriolic string of emails zipping back and forth across hyper space on this topic right now. Almost all of Canada’s “real” indie film makers are weighing in…and it’s safe to say most are NOT happy with how this debacle has unfolded.
don
They wouldn’t have needed a preview DVD, the original version was shown earlier in the year IIRC.
I read in the Star today about changes that were made to what started out to be an independent documentary on Falun Gong.
I find it particularly odd that CBC would go through all this trouble after the doc was previously aired and it’s very hard to believe that the intervention by the PRC has nothing to do with it. To me, Michael Moore’s 9/11 doc which CBC aired ‘intact’ was much more sensitive than some distant qigong movement persecuted by the Chinese government. Mind you Canadians want to know about this forced organ harvesting business of Falun Gong practitioners which 2 Canadian statesmen investigated and they should be given the chance to. But was that part cut off from the film? Or made to look like it was nothing…
Please CBC, I think you should try harder to get your priorities straight and cater to the needs of your Canadian audience including Chinese Canadians as opposed to the needs of the Communist Chinese Officials from the Embassy/Consulate. Where is our Canadian freedom of speech and integrity in all of this?
Please don’t email each reply to me thanks.
The manipulation by CBC executives of the documentary, “Beyond the Red Wall: The Persecution of Falun Gong” has been extreme to point of absurdity.
Recap:
1. The film’s approved months ago.
2. CBC pulls the film the day of airing, coming up with at least 3 unconnected, varying excuses that were published in the press, none of them satisfactory.
3. CBC asks the filmmaker to make about 30 additional changes as reported in the press. The filmmaker – makes them all!
4. The CBC reschedules the program.
5. THEN CBC execs, who are not at all experts on the subject matter step in to make MORE changes, asking the director if he would like to participate. The director, understandably frustrated, refuses.
6. The CBC will now air a program that did not have approval by a veteran, respected, trustworthy documentary filmmaker who worked on it for three years.
There are a number of things CBC has done to diminsh the truthful impact of this piece, and these are things only referred to in the press so far. One of the early stage changes required a label being slapped on screen saying, “This report is not approved by Amnesty International” over top of one of the most vital pieces in the film – that being the widely accepted organ harvesting report.
This label is grossly misleading. A.I. does not even have the capacity to approve or deny the report. The crimes committed through organ harvesting happen in a room with only the violators and the victims. AI’s verification requirement of two separate, unconnected witnesses is virtually an impossibility in this scenario. Putting that statement over top of the report on screen intentionally takes validity away from the report through with a misleading comment that has no relevance to the report whatsoever. This journalistically irresponsible of CBC.
Why was this done?
There are many more questions for the CBC regarding this project. The final result will be shown only when the program airs. The CBC has reaped desperately needed ratings from the free press given to this program by people with conscience who have raised this issue to the public. If CBC now takes these free ratings and uses them to show a program that they have even further deviated from the hard truths initially presented, there is no doubt that those people who in essence helped CBC indirectly through the free press, will further speak their minds and again make this publicly known.
No one wants to be involved in this kind of controversy but the CBC has acted very poorly in this situation and has a human responsibility to present the truth of this ongoing human rights atrocity which was presented to them through three years of effort by Mr. Rowe.
Tonight it will be seen what CBC has done in terms of the truth.
kev, yes but don’t forget the first airing was at 4am in the spring just before the end of the fiscal year (so that the doc could be charged into last year not this year)….and then the second airing was on RDS which the Chinese probably missed.
it is not unusual for producers or senior management to “slip” people courtesy screeners. And given all the CBC folks showing up at the embassy in Ottawa looking for visas for next summer’s Olympics it is entirely possible that someone in management sent over a DvD….you know, just to be nice.
d
Would anything get worse? CBC, actually bend over to Chinese Embassy pressure. CBC does consumer programs such as Marketplace and Fifth Edition. Now CBC just decided to say that they will not reveal the truth about the persecution. Why would a foreign country’s Communist Party scare Canada, a country that supports Human Rights? Is Journalism suppose to be objective? Why could the Chinese officials be scared of the truth?
It’s very clear that the only reason the Chinese Communist Party is interested in the film is that it doesn’t want the world to see the truth of its brutality. Whether they saw the doc or not doesn’t really matter because they know themselves what they’re doing so anyone who took the time as Rowe did, would easily have enough evidence to expose them. In general, I have always believed the CBC to have integrity. They wanted to air this film in the first place after all. So my guess is that the calls from Chinese authorities must have been extremely strong and threatening, which only serves to further expose the nature of how CCP operates. They’re a regime of thugs. If they will go to this length to strong-arm Canada’s national media then it’s easy to believe every accusation of persecution and cruelty taking place in China. What the CBC should do is air the original unedited film, and add the CCP’s attempts to silence them as a post-script.
Well, there have been a lot of documented cases of interference from the Chinese govt in Canadian affairs. Anyone remembering the Operation Sidewinder? And that’s just one disturbing case.
It has to be said that the documentary is probably one of the very few documenting such atrocities against Falun Gong and many other independent groups in China. So CBC should be applauded for it!!! Well done, excellent job, you really did stand up for your mandate!
Most likely CBC also had to take a lot of heat from the Chinese Embassy. That’s not an easy situation!
Remeber Dalai Lama’s recent visit, when they called the Canadian behaviour “a disgrace”? Organ harvesting from Falun Gong people? And they still are allowed to host the Olympics games? Something is terribly wrong here and we all should do something about it.
If the noises I’ve been reading in print media are accurate and the mainland Chinese govt. isn’t being let off the hook for one second by what finally airs, what then?
Cause for rejoicing?
I find it odd that:
- Mark Starowicz, “one of the great documentarians” quoted by CBC’s
John Cruichshank, was the producer of CBC’s heavily promoted 6-hour
“China Rising”. But that long film, never even mentioned Falun Gong nor
Tibet but yet CBC uses Mark Starowicz’s China Rising to attack the
producer of Beyond the Red Wall.
- But has any of the CBC China Bureau members put in any efforts to
look into Falun Gong, has they ever reported on Falun Gong at all? are they going to be more knowledgeable than Peter Rowe who worked on the film for 3 years, and Kilgour/Matas who did the report?
- The area of their cut was actually evidence to support the so-called allegations. When evidence presented were cut, what was presented certainly only becomes allegations without backing.