Beijing - China's ruling Communist Party has banned images
and mention of pigs in television advertisements aired over the lunar
new year to avoid offending the country's Muslims, an advertising
agency said on Friday.
'We were told by the CCTV (China Central Television) censorship
team that the CCTV advertising department announced a new regulation
on pigs in its internal document,' an executive at the Shanghai-based
Mindshare agency told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone.
The ban also applies to cartoons and traditional paper-cut images
of pigs, and to slogans such as 'golden pig brings you fortune' and
'wish you a happy pig year,' the executive said.
He said the decision was taken 'in order to avoid nationality
conflicts' and issued by Li Changchun, a top party propaganda
official and a member of the party's elite Politburo.
'The regulation only applies to advertisements,' a staff member in
the CCTV advertising department said, refusing to answer further
questions.
CCTV and other state broadcasters normally run dozens of popular
variety shows and other special programmes before and during the
one-week national holiday to mark the lunar new year, or Spring
Festival.
The Year of the Pig begins on February 18.
China officially has 21 million Muslims among it 1.3 billion
people, about half of them from the Hui group which predominates in
poor northwestern areas but is spread across the country.
Some 7.5 million Uighurs, most of whom are Muslims, form the
largest minority in China's Central Asian region of Xinjiang.
The Communist Party retains control over religious activity
and all mosques must register with the Islamic Association.
It protected 'normal religious activities' in its 1982
constitution, after all religion was forcibly suppressed during the
communist fundamentalism of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
The government now gives concessions to Muslims and ethnic
minorities under its 'one-child' family planning policy and has
recruited more officials from minorities.
Local conflicts sometimes erupt between Hui Muslims and the Han
Chinese majority and are more common between Uighurs and Han in
Xinjiang.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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