INTERVIEW
"If the Chinese press were free, the coronavirus might not have become a pandemic," are the words of the NGO Reporters Without Borders. China is 177th out of 180 in the RSF World Press Freedom Index in 2019. According to RSF, without the control and censorship imposed by the Chinese authorities, the country's media would have informed much earlier about the severity of the coronavirus. And thousands of lives could have been saved.
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The underrated dead in Wuhan?
An image has struck the international community. At the end of confinement in Wuhan, queues lengthened in front of the funeral homes to collect the urns of deceased relatives. Chinese authorities say 2,538 people died in the center of the epidemic. But the numbers could be largely underestimated. "There are investigations, including Chinese newspapers like Caixin, which tend to show that the number of funeral urns ordered is much greater than the mortality of the coronavirus communicated by the official authorities", underlines Christophe Deloire, director of RSF on Europe 1.
"The future will tell if there has been a lie, but what is already certain is that if, from the start, there had not been an absolutely insane information check, then public authorities would have been forced to take action much sooner, populations would have taken their precautions, foreign countries would have been better informed, in short it would have probably changed the situation, and allowed multiple actors to make better decisions at the time the beginnings of the epidemic, "he added.
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A whistleblower journalist under the pseudonym "Cold Look on Finance" has calculated that 500 ballot boxes are returned every day by the eight crematoriums in the region. He did the math and estimated the number of deaths in Wuhan city alone at 59,000. The business newspaper Caixin counted 6,500 urns, delivered to the city of Wuhan in the past two weeks, to collect the ashes of the victims of Covid 19.
Responsibility of the authorities
Between these still vague estimates, we must not give in to conspiracy theories. "I would believe when evidence will be disclosed. The press, and a Chinese press part, is doing its job", nuance Christophe Deloire, who reminds all the same that some newspapers can serve the strategy of power. "This allows responsibilities to be placed on the local authorities. When you know the Chinese situation: everything is instrumentalized. This can redirect suspicion, to avoid being able to challenge Beijing."
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According to the director of RSF, the regime has a strong responsibility vis-à-vis the world as regards the censorship of information on the Covid-19 epidemic. "It's a regime that says 'when we control information, it's an internal affair, it's our business to us Chinese'," analyzes Christophe Deloire. "This epidemic proves that this argument does not hold, censorship is not an internal affair."
RSF examined the chronology of the pandemic and the health crisis. As early as October, an epidemic simulation carried out by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security had given a freezing result: millions of deaths in 18 months. They had alerted the international community but without success. "As the Chinese internet is isolated, there is an elaborate system of electronic censorship, the media are forced to follow the instructions of the Communist Party: neither the public nor the authorities were interested in this information from the states United, "denounces the director of RSF.
Whistleblowers worried
On December 20, one month after the first documented case, the city of Wuhan already had 60 patients with an unknown SARS-like pneumonia, many of whom frequented the Huanan fish market. On December 25, the director of the gastroenterology department of a hospital in Wuhan heard about cases of infection affecting medical personnel. And she suspects from the first week of January that the infection is transmissible from human to human. But it does not give information to the media.
"Doctors, at that time, know what they risk if they raise the alarm: they will not be greeted, honored, they risk professional blame or even heavy prison terms This doctor, if she had taken media responsibility, it would have forced the authorities to act three weeks earlier than they did ", deplores Christophe Deloire.
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Eight emergency doctors from Wuhan Central Hospital also launched an appeal during the same period, but they will be arrested by Chinese authorities on January 3 for "spreading false rumors". One has become famous: Li Wenliang, who died from the disease.
"The notion of false rumors was used a lot by the current president when he came to power. He launched a rumor hunt," analyzes the director of RSF. "In reality, the term false rumor is a delicate term to qualify the information that hinders Chinese power. It is a witch-hunting instrument."
International censorship
For the people, the consequences are terrible. Impossible to take precautions and understand that an epidemic is emerging. On December 31, at the same time as China alerted the World Health Organization, it censored the discussion platform "WeChat", widely used in China, by censoring a large number of keywords referring to the epidemic. "Which do not allow journalists to broadcast their reports, nor the public to receive health rules," said Christophe Deloire.
Professor Zhang Yongzhen's team at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center manages to sequence the virus as early as January 5, but authorities seem reluctant to publish the genome sequence. On January 11, the day China confirms its first death due to the virus, researchers leak information on open source platforms. "The reaction of the Chinese authorities is to close the laboratory in reprisal," notes the director of RSF. "As the Chinese authorities are among the most opaque in the world, it is difficult to know their motivations."
The strength of independent journalism
RSF launched on Tuesday a platform "Observatory 19", with reference to the virus but also to article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights which guarantees freedom of opinion and expression. The objective: to assess the impact of the pandemic on journalism. "The corona crisis demonstrates how great challenges cannot be addressed without independent journalism."
"The whole world could have been better prepared," concludes Christophe Deloire. "Obviously that would not have made that measures which have not been taken for ten years would have been taken in a few weeks, but it would have saved a few weeks in an epidemic and that is fundamental". Friday, thirteen journalists, international media correspondents were faced with an obligation to leave the country within ten days.