Pro-Trump newspaper containing coronavirus ‘conspiracy theories’ posted to Worthing and Littlehampton residents

On Tuesday, June 16, Lauren, of Gloucester Road, Littlehampton, received the 16-page broadsheet supplement from The Epoch Times through her letterbox, with a front page headline saying ‘How China’s Communist regime endangered the world’.

According to her, it contained claims including that the Chinese Communist Party was responsible for a cover-up regarding the virus outbreak in Wuhan, causing the global pandemic.

The 31-year-old was ‘outraged’ by its contents, adding: “I was angry that someone was able to drop that through my door and worried that other people would have recieved it and might believe it.”

Arun District Council leader James Walsh said this was unhelpful in an era of ‘fake and false news’, adding: “I would advise anyone who receives a copy to bin it or burn it.”

The title is fiercely opposed to the Chinese Communist regime, having been founded in 2000 by Chinese-Americans who fled the country ’in response to communist repression and censorship’, its website said.

The newspaper is supportive of President Trump, and has published several stories about ‘Spygate’, a theory alleging that Barack Obama and his allies placed a spy inside Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Jonathan Allenby of Vicarage Fields, Durrington, also received the magazine through his letterbox.

His teenage son ‘immediately ripped it up in disgust’, the 48-year-old said, adding: “It felt really intrusive, like we had been invaded in some way.”

Jonathan, whose wife is a GP in Worthing, said: “It is a worry that the spread of misinformation could undermine the legitimacy of genuine health and social welfare messaging.”

Charles James and Jane Sim, Worthing Borough councillors for Durrington ward, said no residents had approached them about the magazine.

An Epoch Times spokesman pointed the Herald to an online statement which said that after a ‘good response’ in the US, the ‘special edition was being distributed to select areas, as we believe it contains important information’ and ‘allows people to become familiar with our content and subscribe’ to the newspaper online.

It said reporting was ‘based on internal documents we obtained from our network of sources in China’.

The statement added: “While the CCP censors all information in the Chinese media, our reporting on the coronavirus has been a vital service to our readers.”