UN Authority Figures

UN Committee on Information: China

Five men linked to the Causeway Bay Books shop in Hong Kong have vanished since mid-October, and government critics describe their suspected abduction to mainland China as the latest sign of Beijing's erosion of civil rights in what is supposedly a semi-autonomous territory.
Source: The Guardian, January 5, 2016

Mission of the Committee on Information: "...To promote the establishment of a new, more just and more effective world information and communication order intended to strengthen peace and international understanding and based on the free circulation and wider and better-balanced dissemination of information and to make recommendations thereon to the General Assembly." (Committee on Information website, "About the Committee")

China's Term of office: 1984 (P.2, Para 4) - current

China's Record on Freedom of Information:
"Throughout the year human rights activists, journalists...and their family members continued to be among those targeted for arbitrary detention or arrest... Media sources indicated public security authorities used televised confessions of foreign and domestic bloggers, journalists, and business executives in an attempt to establish guilt before their criminal trial proceedings began... All books and magazines require state-issued publication numbers, which were expensive and often difficult to obtain. Nearly all print media, broadcast media, and book publishers were affiliated with the CCP or a government agency. There were ...no privately owned television or radio stations. The CCP directed the domestic media to refrain from reporting on certain subjects, and all broadcast programming required government approval... Government officials used criminal prosecution, civil lawsuits, and other punishments, including violence, detention, and other forms of harassment, to intimidate authors and journalists and to prevent the dissemination of controversial writings. A domestic journalist could face demotion or job loss for publishing views that challenge the government."
(U.S. State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2014, China)