The Chinese Mission to the European Union has slammed the West for what it described as applying double standards in responding to its ban of the BBC in China.

China banned the British broadcaster’s World News after it published a report on the plight of the reeducation camp in Xinjiang with victims accusing of systemic sexual abuse.

The U.K. had banned China’s CGTN earlier this month with Germany following suit on Friday, with the British regulator accusing the news channel of breaking U.K. law on state-backed ownership.

BBC failed to meet the requirements to broadcast in China as an overseas channel, China’s Mission to the E.U. said in a statement. The decision by the National Radio and Television Administration was entirely legitimate and lawful, it said.

BBC went against the requirements that news reporting must be truthful and impartial, and has undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity, the mission said.

Truthfulness, objectivity and impartiality are fundamental requirements for news reporting and important prerequisites for media freedom, it added.

“Double standards shall not be applied to fighting disinformation. The freedom of press under double standards can only be seen as freedom of disinformation,” it said.

Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK has also decided to pull BBC programs off the air in accordance with the NRTA’s decision.

“The EU side has no right to use it as a pretext to make irresponsible comments on the Hong Kong national security law,” the mission said.

China’s state-run mouthpiece People’s Daily also defended the decision to ban the BBC, saying that it was a just act to protect China’s national interests, and was a full display of China’s intolerance of fake news as well as foreign media’s smearing of China with disinformation.

The newspaper criticized BBC’s report on China as “the lie of the century” in violation of professional ethics, full of double standards and ideological bias, angering the Chinese people.

Press freedom does not equal freedom to lie, fabricate news and to smear, it said.

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