theguardian.com, Thursday 16 October 2014 04.37 EDT
Corporation condemns ‘deliberate censorship’ as Chinese official claims foreign media are not reporting protests objectively
China has blocked the BBC website as protests in Hong Kong continue. Photograph: Alexander Koerner/Getty Images
Chinese censors have blocked the website of the UK’s national broadcaster, the BBC said in a statement late on Wednesday, coming as tensions rise in Hong Kong between pro-democracy protesters and police.
The broadcaster said that the move seemed to be “deliberate censorship”. It did not say what may have prompted the move by Beijing, which also blocks the websites of the New York Times, newswire Bloomberg and the BBC’s Chinese-language website.
“The BBC strongly condemns any attempts to restrict free access to news and information and we are protesting to the Chinese authorities. This appears to be deliberate censorship,” said Peter Horrocks, director of the BBC World Service Group.
The BBC’s English-language website was still inaccessible in China on Thursday morning.
In Hong Kong, police used pepper spray early on Thursday to stop pro-democracy protesters from blocking a major road near the office of the city’s embattled leader amid public anger over the police beating a protester a day earlier.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China.
A Chinese official told foreign media in Hong Kong on Wednesday that China has seen interference in the city’s pro-democracy protests from outside forces and called on international journalists to report “objectively“.
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