# 2861
The Epoch Times is part of a media empire that includes The Sound of Hope Radio Network, and the New Tang Dynasty TV network, that was founded by and is affiliated with Falun Gong practitioners.
In 2007, the Wall Street Journal profiled their operation in a piece called Chinese Dissidents Take On Beijing Via Media Empire. Unlike Chinese state run media, the Epoch Times is openly critical of the Beijing government.
They often run stories about human rights abuses, news censorship, or other anti-Chinese government stories.
These stories are not always verifiable. Often they are flatly denied by the Chinese Government.
Yesterday, newshounds on FluTrackers posted a couple of stories regarding a reported outbreak of bird flu in Wuhan, Heibei Province China.
Both were in Chinese, and machine translated.
One was a transcript from a Sound of Hope Radio show, (hat tip Sally & Florida1), and the other was a New Tang Dynasty TV broadcast (hat tip Muscade), with what was represented as video footage of a major culling operation going on in Wuhan China.
The translations, however, left something to be desired. Today we have a less cryptic English language version of the story printed in the Epoch Times.
Unfortunately, the story doesn't provide much in the way of specifics.
No date of the outbreak is given, just that is was `recent'. There are broad statements like - Local residents report that cases of human infections have occurred in Wuhan’s Huangbei and Xinzhou districts - but actual details are lacking.
Getting `sensitive information' out of China, of course, isn't an easy task. And many of the `reporters' for these dissident news agencies are volunteers, not professional journalists.
For now, it is impossible to know whether this is a credible report.
That said, and with perhaps a bit more emphasis than usual to Caveat Lector, here is the story from the Epoch Times.
Wuhan Bird Flu Outbreak Censored by Local Media
By Guo Liang, Yu Shancai
Hundreds of thousands of chickens are slaughtered in Wuhan Province to control the recent bird flu outbreak. (Sound of Hope)
A recent outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in Wuhan City of Hubei Province led to a mass slaughter of local poultry. Local residents report that cases of human infections have occurred in Wuhan’s Huangbei and Xinzhou districts. Local media has completely censored all news about the outbreak.
According to a source from Dongxihu District of Wuhan, many chickens have been killed after bird flu broke out in Liji Town of Dongxihu. The source said that several hundreds of thousands of chickens have already been slaughtered in Xinzhou.
Ms. Zhang, a resident of Liji, said that many places in Wuhan have been affected by the bird flu, but the media is forbidden to report related news. She said, “The media aren’t allowed to mention it, and we aren’t allowed to discuss it with outsiders.”
Other locals have also reported cases of bird flu infections, and the mass slaughtering of chickens, in urban areas of Wuhan.
Ms. Chen, who lives close to Wuhan, said that people who have killed their chickens have not received the promised compensation from the authorities. She said that she has twice culled her flock, but received nothing from the authorities.
In January, eight people from Beijing, Shandong, Guizhou, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Guangdong and Hunan were infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. Five of the eight infected died. On February 10, Chinese Communist Party officials publicly announced that the first bird flu outbreak occurred in the Hetian Area in Xinjiang Province. To date, no information on the bird flu outbreak in Wuhan has been officially reported.
Some screen shots from yesterday's video report:
