New York (CNN Business)China banned BBC World News from airing within the country, consistent with a press release China's National Radio and tv Administration released last week. The BBC says China is doing a disservice to its citizens.
"China is taking its place on a really list of nations alongside North Korea and Iran that explicitly and totally blocked BBC News coverage," Jamie Angus, the director of BBC World Service Group, said on "Reliable Sources" Sunday.
China doesn't belong thereon list, Angus said, adding, "Chinese people are very outward looking. they need to know international news from round the world, but crucially, they need to ascertain how their own country is being reported by the BBC."
Angus told CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter that it's "not acceptable for them to be completely blocked from access to BBC news outlets."
In a statement, China's NRTA claimed BBC World News had broadcast reports on China that "infringed the principles of truthfulness and impartiality in journalism."
The BBC has shed light on the turmoil within the country, reporting that ladies are systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured at camps within the western region of Xinjiang. and therefore the US State Department estimates that up to 2 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities have allegedly been put into internment camps.
Beijing has long defended the crackdown in Xinjiang as necessary to tackle extremism and terrorism.
It is unclear what proportion impact China's ban of BBC World News will have in China because the BBC has never been allowed to broadcast in China or into Chinese homes. BBC World News was only ever been available in international hotels.
China's move to ban the network may additionally be retaliatory. In early February, British media regulators pulled the license of China's state-owned international news channel CGTN.
But some people in China are still trying to seek out ways round the ban. "Of course you'll always access BBC digital services with some quite VPN setup," Angus told Stelter Sunday. But China is making that harder for people to try to to and access to BBC digital services in English and Mandarin are increasingly blocked over the last 18 months.
"It is so revealing when countries attempt to block out real news coverage, as is that the case with with the BBC in China," Stelter said.
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