by Huang Xia
(from Hong Kong, China)
For many
years, in the hearts of the people of all countries, the BBC,
for taking not fearing power, upholding impartiality, reporting the truth of the fact objectively, respecting religious belief, and
so on, as its aim, is judged one of the
media most respected worldwide. But
on August 14, 2014, a
report in the BBC Chinese website greatly disappoints many net friends who deeply trust the BBC. Particularly, some parts in this
article that are not objective make
the sensible net friends begin to red light the trust towards the BBC.
As the
Christians of the Church of Almighty God, we are shocked by this report of the BBC even more greatly. Next let’s look at the problems
in this report together.
I. The
title of this article is “A Report on the Spot: The
Chinese Cult that Kills ‘Demons.’” Before writing this article, has the author Carrie really made an on-the-spot
investigation in the Church of Almighty God? If not, how
much can this article be trusted? We believers in God mainly strive to have our life
disposition transformed through
reading Almighty God’s word and understanding the truth. God requires us to have
conscience and sense in our living out, to be forbearing, patient, and tolerant, and so on, and in the end to live out the
likeness of a real man. Whether
others are “demons” or not is not the subject of our life entering in and it has nothing to do with
us. So, with us there is
not such an absurd saying of “killing demons.” But the two men mentioned in the article both say that
the believers in
Almighty God are “killing demons.” This
runs counter to God’s teaching to us. I
would like to ask the author these questions: When you published this article, have you learned the purpose of
our believing in God in the Church of Almighty God? Have you ever contacted the Christians of the Church of
Almighty God? Have you made a
practical research about what Zhang
Lidong and Wang Jiannan said? If
your answers to all these questions are “no,” is it suitable for you to use “a report on the spot” in the
article? Such an act of the
BBC has not only gone against the
tenet of being objective and impartial in managing its media, which it had
always upheld, but it is a very irresponsible act to the public.
II. In
this report, except for Zhang
Lidong known to all, who is the leading role in the “5/28 Zhaoyuan Incident,” through which the CCP
wantonly defames and frames
the Church of Almighty God, there appears another so-called victim named Wang Jiannan who gives
some “evidence.” Yet those who are
careful will find that in
the report, only Wang Jiannan himself speaks from beginning to end, without any concrete evidence at
all. In the report, Wang
firmly says that his sister and mother are
members of the Church of Almighty God. According
to the independent reporting style of the BBC, why hasn’t it gone to check with Wang’s sister since she is in prison? Besides, he says that they have
believed for about 20 years; yet
she killed her father on the excuse of “killing a demon.” This is completely contrary to
the word of Almighty God. Then
their identities are suspect. So,
only with a picture of a man’s mourning for the dead before a grave, it plants all the problems on
the Church of Almighty God. Is
this convincing? According to the
author’s reasoning, shouldn’t it be
concluded that the suffering of all those who mourn before graves is caused by the “killing demons”
of the Church of Almighty God? Is
such evidence tenable? The
BBC says in its tenet of “trust”: “Trust is the foundation of the BBC: We are independent, impartial and honest. We are committed to achieving
the highest standards of due accuracy and impartiality and strive to avoid knowingly or materially misleading our
audiences.” Then is the BBC’s
deed keeping the promise
of striving to achieve accuracy in reporting? Or is it upholding its tenet of
not misleading its audiences?
III. We
are perplexed about the two video
screenshots quoted in the article. We
all know that to learn about the
content of an article or a film, we
should at least read this article or watch this film, and then we can give our opinions. However, in this report, it only selects and quotes two
screenshots from the two films of
the Church of Almighty God, and
it adds its own opinions and comments about them without respecting the original purposes of the authors and
the Church of Almighty God to
make these two films. Moreover,
it misleads people onto a pathway contrary to the original intentions of the
film makers. Such misleading
doesn’t respect the fact, much less care about the public feelings. The BBC says in its tenet of
“Serving the Public Interests”: “We seek to report
stories of significance to our audiences. We will be rigorous in
establishing the truth of the story and
well informed when explaining it.” This report of the BBC not only hasn’t
served the public interests or
reported the fact, but on the contrary
it has brought loss to the public interests: Before watching the films, they have been infused with a wrong viewpoint. Isn’t this thoughtless and
improper? Besides, as to
whether the viewpoints in the article are accordant with the facts, the public can draw a conclusion
only after making an investigation themselves. If the BBC really upholds the tenet of “transparency” it claims, shouldn’t it publish the links
of these two films on the Internet and let the public judge them themselves,
only which can be said to be transparent?
Many
people in the world know that the
CCP government cruelly maltreats dissidents: In the world-shocking “6/4 Incident” in 1989, the CCP used tanks and machine
guns to suppress the defenseless
students who sat in the Tiananmen Square petitioning for democracy; in the Tibet issue, in order to maintain its
dictatorship the CCP created false cases and slaughtered the Tibetan people bloodily, and all at once the blood flowed
like rivers in the Tibet. Now,
in China so many people have no way to live because their houses are forcibly torn down by the CCP, and when they petition with
grievances, they are arrested and put in prison and secretly killed; and so many believers in
Almighty God are imprisoned illegally by the CCP and are maimed or killed; … As a western mainstream media, you should see that not only the people in the whole
Mainland China are disclosing the CCP, but
the people of various countries and the media in the West have all seen the cruelty of the
CCP’s fighting the dissidents and
especially persecuting the religion. It’s
no wonder that the western democratic countries call China a country in the
axis of evil. Under the ruling of
the CCP, the Chinese people have no human rights at all. As for such an evil party, haven’t you, the BBC, seen it through? An agency who bears the glory
and image of Britain and its people actually
turns into the CCP’s mouthpiece and speaks for it at such a time. We are greatly shocked by it! BBC, what qualification do you
have to stand as a star in
the ranks of impartial media of the world?
Why does
the BBC, even in a matter that everyone with a discerning eye can see through, go against its aim of managing
the media and speak against the
fact? Is it motivated by
money or forced by power? Is
the BBC a media or a ruling party? In
June this year, Li Keqiang, the Chinese premier, paid a sudden visit to Britain and signed commercial contracts
with Britain worth 14 billion pounds. This
makes it very natural for people to link that with this BBC report. The BBC, a media widely
recognized by the world and
deeply respected by its fellows, actually
discards the dignity of speaking the truth for the sake of money and interests, which is really incredible! We can only say this with
sadness: BBC, you have lost
your former aura of an “impartial” media.
