Adjudication No. 1388  (adjudicated May 2008)

The Press Council has upheld a complaint brought by Daryl Sleep against the Nam Uc Tuan Bao, a South Australian Vietnamese-language publication, regarding materials published in its 18 January 2008 edition. The materials relate to photographs that purportedly show a human foetus being prepared for cooking and a man in China apparently eating the cooked foetus. The complainant found the photographs to be revolting and shocking.

The article accompanying the photographs was highly critical of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. It reported alleged atrocities committed by the Chinese government against its own people and used this as an excuse for publishing these images. It said that the persecution by the Chinese government of followers of Falun Gong and the jailing of reporters and the operating of a vast censorship system were occurring despite a promise to the International Olympic Committee to ensure complete media freedom.

The newspaper published the images without explaining that they were apparently the work of a Chinese performance artist named Zhu Yu, that they were over eight years old, and that they have been circulating on the Internet and in anti-Chinese newspapers since 2000. Without putting these images in context the newspaper has sought to portray them as absolute factual accounts and has also failed to take into account the sensibilities of readers. In doing so the newspaper has infringed the ethical principles governing the print media in Australia.

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