Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...
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<strong>Beijing</strong> <strong>Olympics</strong> <strong>2008</strong>: <strong>Winning</strong> <strong>Press</strong> <strong>Freedom</strong><br />
35<br />
you,” are sent by the dozens to journalists. Chinese web sites post the personal contact<br />
details of journalists, particularly those working for the Associated <strong>Press</strong>, The Wall Street<br />
Journal and USA Today, making them easy targets for the nationalists who have been so<br />
strangely authorized to protest.<br />
In the face of this crisis, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China sent security advice to<br />
all its members on April 7, advising them to get in touch with their embassies, to conceal<br />
personal details, to leave notice of their whereabouts when traveling and to report the<br />
most flagrant threats. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was not in a position to control<br />
the threats.<br />
So it is in a tense and hostile climate that tens of thousands of journalists are about to<br />
arrive in <strong>Beijing</strong> to cover the Olympic Games. Nothing suggests that this nationalist wave<br />
is going to calm down. Indeed, the repression in Tibet and the refusal of the authorities to<br />
concede improvements in human rights threaten to radicalize the two camps.<br />
Foreign journalists are going to be faced with many other problems. First, will be that of<br />
finding Chinese interlocutors who can talk to them about the human rights situation. Even<br />
if tongues have loosened in recent years in China, and particularly in <strong>Beijing</strong>, it is still very<br />
risky to speak about the lack of freedoms on camera in front of a foreign journalist.<br />
Those dissidents who have sought to draw attention to lack of liberty in the period leading<br />
up to the Olympic Games have been the targets of a merciless repression. The bestknown<br />
example is that of the dissident Hu Jia, whose imprisonment is clearly linked to his<br />
pivotal role in denouncing human rights violations to foreign journalists and diplomats.<br />
In arresting and punishing Hu Jia, the government is addressing a clear message to<br />
Chinese dissidents: “Watch out. If you talk to foreigners about the Olympic Games, you<br />
will suffer the same fate.” The authorities are also sending a warning to the foreign press:<br />
“You see, we can arrest and condemn those you interview, and there is nothing anyone<br />
can do to stop us.”<br />
Lastly, the Chinese authorities are cocking a snoot at Western diplomats, particularly<br />
Europeans, who had found Hu Jia to be both moderate and charismatic.<br />
To rub in the message cynically, the police and the prosecutor cited two interviews that<br />
Hu Jia had given to the foreign press - just to be sure the message was well understood.<br />
Other embarrassing witnesses have also been imprisoned. One of the founders of the<br />
Chinese Democratic Party, Zhu Yufu, was condemned in the eastern province of<br />
Hangzhou. The human rights activist Zheng Mingfang was sent to a labor camp for two<br />
years because of an open letter he had written about the Olympic Games.<br />
In March, Yang Chunlin, initiator of the campaign “We want human rights, not the Olympic<br />
Games” was sentenced to five years in prison by the intermediate court in Jiamusi, while<br />
two other participants in the campaign have also been detained.