It has been a rather intense week in China – Western world relations. From rebukes over its “industrial scale” human rights abuse in Xinjiang at the UN Human Rights Council to the recognition of an ongoing “genocide” under the terms of the 1948 Convention by Parliaments in Canada and The Netherlands, a slew of initiatives came to fruition with members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) leading the charge.

In the United Kingdom, the revised ‘genocide amendment’ to the UK Trade Bill proposed by IPAC member Lord Alton defeated the government in the House of Lords with overwhelming cross party support. In New Zealand, IPAC co-chair Louisa Wall led calls to introduce modern slavery legislation to prevent the import of goods tainted by forced labor supply chains in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China. In Germany, IPAC co-chair Margarete Bause called for German car manufacturer Volkswagen to move production away from China’s Xinjiang province, after reports have linked the company to the region’s forced labor supply chains, while Gyde Jensen, IPAC member and chair of the Bundestag Human Rights Committee, received a report from the Interior Ministry detailing Chinese state intimidation of exiled Hong Kong residents in Germany.

Beijing has not taken the charge lightly. From its usual response of “outright lies” and the “deliberate smearing of China while grossly interfering in its internal affairs”, to an editorial rant on the pages of the Global Times accusing the Five Eyes alliance of being an “axis of white supremacy […] racist and mafia-styled community”. Calling out its crimes does not resonate well within the communist party regime keen on stifling not only free expression, but the very possibility of free thought in and of itself, as its attempts at imposing a ‘national security thought’ in Hong Kong demonstrate.

Its allergy to a public right to know is becoming more apparent every single day. The repression and arrests of journalists within its territory, the ousting of foreign correspondents and the entry into force of a straight-out ban on BBC broadcasts on February 11, show the profound fear for truth reigning the hearts - presuming they still have one, albeit black as charcoal - and minds of the communist party leadership.

It appears others too let their heart be run by fear, of the People’s Republic of China that is. Shortly prior to the BBC overnight ban and after a long and detailed investigation, the UK’s regulating authority Ofcom revoked CGTN’s broadcasting license after a successful complaint by Safeguard Defenders, which provided irrefutable proof of the broadcasters’ editorial control being in the hands of the CCP (Chines Communist Party), thus running counter to the UK’s regulatory framework. More importantly, the technical decision followed a series of prior convictions by Ofcom for airing a string of content in severe violation of UK broadcasting rules, and several more decisions are about to come in next weeks or months – most of them related to airing forced TV confessions.

In its comprehensive report Scripted and Staged, Safeguard Defenders revealed how since Chinese leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, likely hundreds of human rights defenders, Uyghurs and other detainees have been paraded on TV to read a “scripted” confession made to look like a voluntary interview. Proof on how these were extracted by police through torture, threats to loved ones and promises of lenient treatment, often in incommunicado detention, has been well documented, as well as the direct complicity of Chinese state media in both helping to extract some of these confessions and in packaging them as “news”.

But perhaps the most staggering news of all is not only the fact that such content - even including the forced confessions of European citizens - has been routinely aired also to audiences in the West through CGTN and CCTV-4, but that this remains possible up until today. In fact, in its replies to Ofcom, the broadcaster has reiterated its intent to continue this despicable practise.

It should be evident that, counter to the reasons behind China’s BBC ban, such practises cannot be tolerated within countries that pride themselves on protecting and defending the rule of law and human dignity. The sheer number of human rights violations involved in this practise should in and of itself constitute sufficient reasoning to be declared “not fit and proper” as a broadcaster.

Yet while the UK regulator may soon walk down this path, other European regulators have been much slower, if not completely silent, in their approach. But whereas until recently they had an excuse to do so – under the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, a broadcasting license established in one Member State allowed broadcasting in all adhering States – the revocation of the UK license effectively calls into question the responsibility of many regulating authorities in Europe.

But following Ofcom’s decision and its immediate communication by the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) to all the 54 member authorities from 47 countries part thereof, only Germany has given effect to the current lack of a broadcasting license, taking CGTN of the air in its jurisdiction. Though solicited, other authorities across Europe have yet to give any kind of response to the matter.

While CGTN’s unlicensed broadcasts thus continue, the Financial Times reported that CGTN is rapidly seeking to adjust to the situation by applying for a new license in France, which may arrive shortly. Safeguard Defenders has immediately reacted to this news, providing the French regulator CSA with an extensive overview of CGTN’s practises that run directly counter to the normative framework under which CSA operates, in particular with regard to its obligation to protect human dignity.

Similar actions are underway in Canada, with an open letter published last week after over fourteen months after an official complaint on the systematic and widespread airing of forced confessions was filed, the regulating authority remains silent on a practise it has itself in the past defined as “abusive”.

It is a silence that must be broken. We may not be able to stop the mass human rights abuses in China overnight, but we are and must be able to halt our silent complicity to such practises. This does not mean banning Chinese state networks once and for all, but simply holding them up to the exact same standards any other licensed broadcaster is, rather than silently allowing a “Chinese exception”. It should be self-evident that confessions extorted under torture without the presence of a lawyer and publicly aired without prior consent do not belong on television networks. Moreover, and in stark contrast to the Chinese ban on the BBC, this practise has been documented extensively, allowing authorities to conduct in-depth investigations to which CGTN has been able to respond in full respect of a due process under the rule of law.

There have been many calls for closer cooperation among democracies to counter the authoritarian threat posed to the system by the CCP. The CGTN case may and should serve as a small testing ground. If authorities across Europe – and beyond - cannot agree and coordinate on protecting the basic human dignity at the core of their mandate and simply ask CGTN (and CCTV-4) to abide by the exact same rules and norms all other broadcasters are bound by, it begs the question how effective they may be in other efforts.

(Laura Harth, A human rights activist, she coordinates activities with the Global Committee for the Rule of Law “Marco Pannella” (GCRL). She also acts as a regional liaison for the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).)

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