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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 36 Wang Lianmin, a resident of a neighborhood condemned to be demolished to make way for Olympic installations was arrested this month because he objected to the destruction of his house. Police have been ordered to turn back foreign journalists who attempt to enter villages that have been the scene of disturbances. In 2007, no less than seven journalists were stopped for questioning or attacked when they attempted to enter the village of Shengyou, south of Beijing, the scene of fighting in 2005 in which at least six persons were killed when thugs sought to take land away from farmers. The journalists attacked included Barbara Luthi of Swiss TV, who was beaten up by police. German journalists were stoned by thugs, apparently employed by the police to dissuade them from visiting the house of the wife of the jailed blind lawyer Cheng Guangcheng. To do reporting other than of a sporting nature, the thousands of foreign journalists, of whom only a tiny minority will be able to speak Chinese, are going to have to find Chinese journalists or translators willing to take risks. There is a shortage in Beijing of good “fixers” capable of helping a foreign reporter in a sensitive investigation. Resident correspondents in Beijing work with researchers or translators because it is still impossible to hire a Chinese as a journalist. Working for the foreign press is a risky calling, as shown by the case of Zhao Yan, a researcher for the New York Times, who is serving three years in prison. Through him, authorities are apparently seeking to intimidate others who might want to work for the foreign press. The official guide for journalists covering the Olympic Games recommends working with accredited organizations to find a translator. This must absolutely not be done, since it would mean employing a potential spy who would report everything the foreign journalist says or does to his employer, and thus to the government. A British journalists working on a story about preparations for the Olympics was forced to change fixers twice, since those he employed were terrified by the idea of working on subjects such as the illegal imprisonment of petitioners or dissidents. Fixers are also essential to decipher the propaganda in the official media, which has intensified on sensitive subjects like Tibet, the autonomous Xinjiang region or dissidents. The government has prepared other obstacles for foreign journalists - the blocking of hundreds of Internet information sites, particularly those of non-government organizations and Chinese media abroad, the jamming of international radio stations and the bugging of phones and other communications. So that journalists will have no time to dig into sensitive topics, the organizers of the Games are planning to inundate them with information and invitations that will keep them busy round the clock.
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 37 The promise made in Moscow in 2001 by Wang Wei, Executive Vice President and Secretary General of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games, to guarantee total press freedom for the Games is a dead letter. It is for this reason that Reporters Without Borders is campaigning against the Olympics - to remind the Chinese authorities of this promise so cynically betrayed. Foreign Correspondents Club of China: unrecognized but listened to Jocelyn Ford Chair, Media Freedoms Committee, Foreign Correspondents Club of China The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China was started in 1981. I must admit that the person sitting in front of you is from an illegal organization. We are not recognized by the Chinese government. However, we do have interactions with government officials, which is a change from the situation a few years back when our letters and protests about the attention or arrest of a reporter, or something of that nature, would come back unopened. Now, our communications are accepted. We don't usually get answers, but at least the letters do not come back unopened. We have about 320 correspondent members and some associates. We are a professional organization but we also promote free exchange of information as well as professionalism. I am the head of the Media Freedoms Committee. The committee has only existed for three or four years and, when we started, we gave it the name “Professional Committee” to hide our activities. But now I am comfortable to sit here and say that our name, Freedoms Committee suggests that there is a more liberal feeling in Beijing now and that it is expected that we as foreign correspondents should be pushing for these issues. In 2006, I started doing surveys of the sorts of interference that foreign correspondents face. And when I started doing this I realized that a lot of the correspondents who have been in China for quite some time did not expect to be treated very well. In fact, we tried to get information about any interference that would not be acceptable in an influential democratic country and you would find people saying, “Oh well, I wasn't detained. My personal freedom wasn't taken away. I wasn't allowed to speak to a news source, but that's nothing so I didn't include it.” And so in the second year of the survey, which was last year, we tried to make a greater effort to define what interference in reporting is. Last year, we had several people who were physically assaulted by thugs that we presume may have some relationship to the government. Also, what has happened more recently is that a lot of our members are stopped and asked for passports or residence permits, especially when we try to interview someone the authorities do not want us to interview. That is a new form of interference.
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