Australian public TV scraps Vietnam state news show after protests
SYDNEY - Australian public broadcaster SBS agreed Friday to suspend television re-broadcasts of official Vietnamese news bulletins following protests by Vietnamese immigrants who labelled the shows communist propaganda.
SBS, a multicultural network which broadcasts various international news bulletins, began airing the 35-minute long Vietnamese "Thoi Su" program on October 6 as par of its so-called WorldWatch series.
The program is produced by a state-owned Vietnamese broadcaster and was played unedited by SBS, which said most of its WorldWatch shows were drawn from national broadcasters.
Australian Vietnamese held a series of protests against the show, climaxing on Tuesday when 8,000 people gathered outside the Sydney studios of SBS to demand the show be scrapped.
Community leaders said the state-authorised programs were "biased" and causing "psychological damage" to people who fled their homeland to escape the communists.
"They are airing exactly what we risked our lives for," Vietnamese community president Tien Nguyen said at the time.
After initially insisting Thoi Su was a legitimate program produced in a country with which Australia has diplomatic relations and extensive economic ties, the SBS board on Friday decided to suspend the show.
In a statement, the board acknowledged the show had caused "significant levels of emotional distress among some Vietnamese" and admitted there had not been "appropriate consultations" with the Vietnamese community before presenting the program.
Nguyen was delighted with the decision.
"We are glad that SBS has come to its senses and done the right thing by the community," he said.
"Showing that kind of program, that is purely propaganda, glossing up the regime, showing no negative side of it, no human rights abuses or oppression -- to us it's insulting," he said.
"Many ex-political prisoners and ex-inmates of concentration camps experienced relapses into post traumatic stress disorder," he said.
Nguyen called on SBS to move carefully in looking at alternatives.
"Whatever program that SBS uses has got to be accurate and balanced, impartial and independent," he said.
"We would rather nothing than a program that has very low journalistic standards."
Agence France Presse - December 05, 2003.
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