2 min readBeijingFeb 3, 2009 01:39 PM IST
First published on: Feb 3, 2009 at 01:39 PM IST
China’s official media which went to town to report when shoes were thrown at former US President George W Bush in Iraq,on Tuesday blanked out any mention or image of a British student hurling a shoe at their Premier Wen Jiabao at Cambridge.
The Chinese media,like their Western counterparts,widely covered the incident of Iraqi journalist throwing his shoe at Bush. But newspapers,Television and websites in China failed to report the incident concerning their Premier.
Though the media widely covered the speech of 67-year-old Wen,but it had no reference to the shoe-throwing. Even the TV footage imposed self-censorship by not airing the incident though international agencies were feeding it live.
The official Xinhua news agency merely issued a story saying that the UK had apologised for the incident after China had expressed deep dissatisfaction to the British government over the episode.
The Communist nation’s official CCTV network reported the Foreign Ministry comments,while merely acknowledging that disturbance had taken place during the speech,but there was no mention of shoe throwing.
In the live broadcast,the Chinese TV network cameras remained fixed on Wen,and did not show the hurling of the shoe or the face of the protester,but the sound of the shoe hitting something was heard.
Beijing which keeps a tight leash on the internet,blocking any officially unwanted content,did not allow any mention of the incident.
The shoe missed its target and later one of Wen’s aids picked it up and took it away.
The protester was on his feet midway through the speech,blew the whistle and yelled dictator at Wen and then flung his shoe at Chinese Premier.
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