CBC has filed a formal complaint with the Chinese Ambassador after the national broadcaster's website was blocked in China.
CBC, the Canadian host broadcaster of this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, has had its English website blocked in China since January. It's French site has been blocked for the past six months.
A report by CBC speculates that the website was blocked because CBC aired "Beyond the Red Wall," a documentary that details the Chinese communist regime's persecution of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual practice emphasizing truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
Despite the regime's demands that it not show the documentary, CBC aired it in November, 2007.
"I am writing to request that you make formal and immediate enquiries as to why the sites have been blocked, and that you take steps to ensure that this policy is reversed," wrote CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix in a letter to Chinese ambassador Lu Shumin on Friday.
"I would appreciate your personal commitment to resolving this problem as quickly as possible and ensuring that access to our programming is restored expeditiously," Lacroix wrote.
An article on CBC.ca quotes CBC News publisher John Cruickshank saying that blocking the site is a violation of freedom of the press.
"It restricts the rights of all Canadians living in China, it restricts the rights of Chinese to get Canadian news and culture," said Cruickshank.
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