Olympic Games Beijing 2008

With exactly one month left before the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing, Reporters Without Borders today condemned the absence of a goodwill gesture from the Chinese government as regards the approximately 100 imprisoned journalists, Internet users and cyber-dissidents.

“Do the Chinese authorities really think they are going to turn these games into an international success by stubbornly refusing to free prisoners of conscience and by gagging freedom of expression,” asked the press freedom organisation, which has been campaigning on this issue since 2001.

Reporters Without Borders is calling for demonstrations outside Chinese embassies during the opening ceremony. It is also organising a cyber-demonstration on its website (www.rsf.org) on the opening day.

“The occasional good news, such as the unblocking of access to certain foreign websites and the reopening of Tibet, have been eclipsed by a series of outrageous arrests and increased surveillance of human rights activists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The Olympic infrastructure is in place, but police controls have been stepped up, the Internet is still censored, international radio stations are jammed and Beijing’s air is still polluted.”

“All these topics are banned in the Chinese press,” the organisation added. “And the luxury of the Olympic Press Centre that was inaugurated today in Beijing will not help foreign journalists to forget how precarious their rights are when they try to probe sensitive issues,”

Even the resumption of contacts with the Dalai Lama’s representatives is already being seen as a failure as the Chinese authorities are imposing an extravagant list of preconditions for any real dialogue. One of the Tibetan negotiators said on his return from China last week: “Before the Olympics it is not feasible to hold talks… they are obsessed with the Olympics.” The meeting was staged solely for the sake of the Olympics and to satisfy certain foreign countries, he added.

Much of the blame for the present crisis lies with the International Olympic Committee. By closing its eyes to the Chinese government’s repressive policies, the IOC has negated the “positive effect” that the games were supposed to have on human rights in China. The existence of around 10 “Olympic prisoners” such as Hu Jia and Yang Chunlin, who were arrested just for talking about the games, is proof of this.

It is not too late for the world sports movement to speak out on behalf of free expression. The Olympic Charter says that sport should contribute to “the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

The relatives of certain imprisoned activists have been calling for a goodwill gesture from the Chinese authorities in the run-up to the games. Xinna, the wife of ethnic Mongolian publisher Hada, who has been detained for the past 13 years, this week appealed to the Chinese government to free her husband in a show of respect of human rights.

Reporters Without Borders has been calling for the past few months for a boycott of the 8 August opening ceremony by heads of state, heads of government and members of royal families.

So far, the government representatives who have announced their acceptance of the Chinese president’s invitation to attend are the king of Cambodia, the presidents of Afghanistan, Croatia, Mauritius, South Korea, Switzerland, United States and Vietnam, the prime ministers of Australia, Finland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands and Thailand, the Spanish foreign minister, the Indian minister of sports and Belgium’s Crown Prince Philippe.

The governments of Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, New Zealand and Poland have announced they will send no representative to the opening ceremony. Britain’s Prince Charles has said he will not go to Beijing while its prime minister will attend only the closing ceremony.

The French president will reportedly tell his Chinese counterpart tomorrow whether he will attend.

Source: RSF

July 7, 2008

In 2001, China’s Communist leaders promised the International Olympic Committee to allow free press access to both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the country as a whole. So far signs aren’t good that Beijing will stick to its word.

Witness the case of Norman Choy, a senior reporter with Hong Kong’s Apple Daily who was turned away at the Beijing airport on July 1. Mr. Choy intended to cover events related to the Games; he is one of more than 20,000 journalists expected to report on China in relation to the Olympics over the next six weeks. Yet upon landing in Beijing, immigration officials pulled him aside and questioned him about his travel plans. They then confiscated Mr. Choy’s “home return” travel permit - which allows Hong Kong Chinese visa-free access to the mainland - citing national security law, and put him on the next flight home.

Mr. Choy and his editors still await a formal explanation for which section of the law he might have violated. It’s a smart bet Mr. Choy’s “offense” was working for Apple Daily, a vigorously pro-democracy paper that publishes editions in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But he’s not alone. Reporters Without Borders says it’s received several complaints in recent months from European journalists, mostly free-lancers, who are encountering inexplicable snags in applying for visas to enter China around the time of the Games.

This is all part of a nationwide pattern. Whether it’s this spring’s uprising in Tibet or the torch relay in the restive western Xinjiang province, foreign correspondents have run into a wall of official restraints and resistance, as Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch documents here. Even when Beijing has briefly allowed foreign reporters into trouble spots, such as the areas hit by the Sichuan earthquake in May, it has quickly tamped down again. Reports of various kinds of intimidation all over the country are rife.

Starting tomorrow, the roughly 5,600 journalists accredited to cover the sporting events are supposed to be able to enter using their Olympic press cards in lieu of visas. They will file stories on the athletes and events. But that will be only part of the China story this summer. Beijing promised to allow journalists to cover the rest of it - not least in a new press law issued in December 2006 that was supposed to provide easier nationwide access to foreign reporters. The next few weeks will show whether it intends to keep its word instead of delivering only “press freedom” with Chinese characteristics.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday he might attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics if talks announced Sunday between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama make progress.

“If there was continued progress and if the Dalai Lama and the Chinese president acknowledged the progress, then the obstacle to my participation would be lifted,” Sarkozy said on French television, Monday night.

He said the situation in Tibet is “not acceptable” but added, “We absolutely must not push a population of 1.3 billion people into wounded nationalism.”

After the March riots in Tibet and the government crackdown that followed, Sarkozy said he might boycott the opening of the Games.

Reports suggest that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has already secretly decided to attend the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing on 8 August, despite his promise to consult his European partners on the subject and to take a decision in accordance with the progress made in the dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama.

“On what basis have you decided to go to Beijing?” Reporters Without Borders asks President Sarkozy. “On the progress in the dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama’s representatives? The dialogue has deadlocked and the recent Lhasa leg of the Olympic torch relay was marked by a new declaration of war by Chinese officials against Tibetans who support the Dalai Lama. On an improvement in human rights in China? Arrests are on the increase and the government has not responded to any of the European requests for the release of prisoners of conscience.

“Mr. President, surely you have not dared to break your promise to attend the opening ceremony only if the Chinese kept their promises? Or have you succumbed to the anti-French demonstrations that were orchestrated by the Chinese government? What a sad image France would present if it were to submit to blackmail by a government that continues to flout its people’s right to express their views!

“As you are to take over the European Union’s rotating presidency tomorrow, you must surely be aware that the European Parliament adopted a resolution on 10 April asking you not to attend this ceremony if the Chinese authorities did not agree to resume a proper dialogue with the Tibetans.”

In April, when repeatedly pressed on the subject, Sarkozy conditioned his attendance at the opening ceremony on a resumption of dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama’s representatives. Meetings did take place but the process has been frozen since May. And when the United States and the European Union recently issued a joint appeal for “results-oriented” talks on Tibet, it was rejected by China as meddling in its internal affairs. The Chinese authorities are also barring foreign journalists from Tibet while massive roundups and reeducation campaigns continue.

There are reports that indicate that Sarkozy may take advantage of the G-8 summit on 8-9 July in Japan to announce to his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, that he will attend the opening ceremony of the games. Several French officials including France’s ambassador in Beijing have told journalists that Sarkozy will be in Beijing on 8 August.

This decision seems to have been taken despite the fact that come EU countries, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Austria, have come out in favour of boycotting the opening ceremony.

A petition signed by 6,500 Internet users calling on Sarkozy not to go to Beijing on 8 August has been handed in to the Elysée Palace by Reporters Without Borders. A total of 53 Members of the European Parliament have also signed a similar appeal organised by Reporters Without Borders.
With less than a month and a half to go to the start of the games, around 100 journalists, cyber-dissidents, bloggers and Internet users are still imprisoned in China. The Chinese authorities have never kept the human rights promises they gave in 2001 when Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 games.

Source: RSF

Reporters Without Borders thinks that the International Olympic Committee has not gone far enough in its expression of “regret” today about the political message of hatred towards the Dalai Lama and his followers that two senior Communist Party officials made during the Olympic torch relay in Lhasa on 21 June.

“It is not enough for the IOC to express its regret about the extreme gravity of what happened in Tibet,” the press freedom organisation said. “The IOC’s president, Jacques Rogge, must request a public apology from those who made these comments and from the BOCOG. The IOC’s silence on human rights issues allows these excesses, in which the Olympic Games are used to justify repression in Tibet.” Reporters Without Borders already criticised the IOC’s silence on 23 June.

Agence France-Presse reported that the IOC issued an email statement today saying: “The IOC regrets that political statements were made during the closing ceremony of the torch relay in Tibet. We have written to BOCOG (Beijing Olympics Organising Committee) to remind them of the need to separate sport and politics.”
Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party’s secretary in Tibet, said during the Olympic flame ceremony in Lhasa: “In order to bring more glory to the Olympic spirit, we should firmly smash the plots to ruin the Beijing Olympic Games by the Dalai clique and hostile foreign forces inside and outside of the nation.” Qin Yizhi, another party official, also called for the Dalai Lama’s supporters to be “smashed.”

Source: Reporters Without Borders

BEIJING (AFP) — China re-opened Tibet to foreign tourists Wednesday after claiming victory over the worst unrest there in decades — which led Beijing to all but seal off the area from the outside world.

China’s crackdown in the wake of violent protests in Tibet in March drew international condemnation, and led to demonstrations in several countries that disrupted the Olympic torch relay ahead of the Beijing Games in August.

On the Tibet government website, spokesman Zha Nuo said the region would be re-opened for tourists — and that a trouble-free run for the torch through the Tibetan capital Lhasa on Saturday showed current stability.

“After the quick quelling of the ‘March 14′ incident in Lhasa, we have realised a great transitional victory in the fight against separatists,” Zha said.

“The successful Beijing Olympic torch relay in Lhasa on June 21 further proves that currently social stability in Tibet has been further consolidated.”

With the Beijing Olympics set to start in little over a month, China faced the prospect of the Games being tarnished by continued overseas criticism of its Tibet policies if it kept the region sealed off.

Despite the announcement that the region was open to foreigners, tour operators in Lhasa said restrictions remained in place and non-Chinese could travel to the region only in tour groups and after obtaining special permits.

“It is still difficult for foreigners to travel here, it is not really all opened up,” a tour agent with the Shendi International Travel Agency in Lhasa told AFP by phone.

“The problem is that the permits are going to take time…. Without the permit to enter Tibet, foreign travellers will not be able to purchase air or train tickets to Tibet.”

Zha said two Swedish tourists would arrive in Lhasa on Wednesday, followed by four from Singapore on Sunday.

He did not mention when a ban on foreign journalists to the region would be lifted.

Beijing kicked all tourists and foreigners out of Tibet after violent protests against Chinese rule erupted in mid-March, prompting a massive Chinese security clampdown.

China allowed mainland Chinese tour groups back in at the end of April, followed by visitors from Hong Kong and Macau in May, when it also began allowing tourists from Taiwan — which China considers part of its territory.

“It is very hard for us to believe that China will allow free access to western tourists,” Paul Bourke, the executive director of the Australia Tibet Council, told AFP.

“China has always seemed to go to great lengths to prevent Tibetans from having any contact with foreigners. We will be watching with interest to see how this so-called ‘opening’ develops.”

Bourke said he continues to receive reports from Tibet about a huge military presence in the region and an ongoing police and military lockdown on Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.

Foreign tourists would likely be watched closely and their movements would be restricted, Bourke said, citing what he said was the stage-management of Saturday’s torch relay in Lhasa.

“They may be saying the torch relay was a success, but it was cut from three days to one day and then to a few hours,” Bourke said.

“It was completely stage-managed, with most Tibetans told to stay at home. There was a huge military presence on the streets, and the journalists covering it were all hand-picked and restricted.”

China’s crackdown on the unrest in Tibet sparked international protests that dogged the Olympic torch’s month-long global journey in April before it arrived in China for a nationwide relay.

Exiled Tibetan leaders say 203 people died in the Chinese clampdown on the riots, which began in Lhasa after monks led peaceful protests to mark a 1959 uprising, and later spread across the Tibetan plateau.

China has reported killing one Tibetan “insurgent” and says “rioters” were responsible for 21 deaths.

Source AFP

Reporters Without Borders today accused China of breaking its promises to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by preventing foreign journalists from freely covering the journey of the Olympic flame through Xinjiang and Tibet.

Only a few were allowed to go to Kashgar, Urumqi and Lhasa, and they were forbidden to talk to local people. The authorities also used the passage of the flame through these sensitive regions to mount a new propaganda campaign despite the government saying, like the IOC, that the Games must not be politicised.

“The Olympic flame relay journey has never been such a trumped-up operation where local people have been told to stay indoors because they are seen as a threat,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “And never have foreign journalists been so restricted in reporting on an event that has been outrageously politicised by the Chinese government.

“Yet the IOC remains silent in the face of this new violation of the Olympic Charter by Chinese officials using the Olympic flame to justify political repression,” it said.
Only about 50 foreign journalists were allowed to report on the passage of the flame through Lhasa on 21 June and nearly half of them were from media outlets in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan who were handpicked by the Chinese government. International news agencies and some TV stations with rights to broadcast the Beijing Games were allowed two days in Lhasa. Other parts of Tibet have been closed to foreigners for more than three months. No US or British daily paper was allowed in.

When they got to Lhasa, foreign reporters were barred from going to the Jokhang temple in the old part of the city and instead guided to Potala and the Sera monastery. “A large number of uniformed and plainclothes police filmed our every move and there were very few monks we could talk to and question,” one journalist told Reporters Without Borders.
Journalists were kept in a park opposite the old summer residence of the Dalai Lama where the flame set out from. They were not allowed to follow the flame, go into the old city or talk to local people. Official guides also tried to deceive journalists about the situation in Lhasa. One Canadian reporter who asked why all shops were shut as the flame passed through the city was told that shops in Tibet were always closed on a Saturday (21 June). What is not true.

“The passage of the flame was a sad affair,” said another journalist. “Those watching were chosen by the authorities, police lined the whole route and there were military checkpoints throughout the city.”

Website access in China to some of the reports filed by foreign journalists, such as the reporter of Canada’s Globe and Mail, was later blocked by the authorities.

Officials in Xinjiang strictly supervised the activities of foreign journalists allowed to report on the passage of the flame through Kashgar and Urumqi. Despite promises made to foreign media, reporters were banned from speaking to the local Uighur population at the roadside.

“Don’t worry, we’re still giving you freedom to report,” one official told a Reuters news agency journalist in Kashgar on 18 June. The few reporters present were surrounded by police who stopped them leaving the security area. The Xinjiang authorities even printed a guide for foreign journalists saying that if there was a sudden event, meaning demonstrations, they would be asked to leave at once.

As in Lhasa, those allowed to see the flame pass were Han and Uighur people chosen by the authorities, who had asked most people to keep off the streets and to watch the passage of the flame on TV.

Government-controlled media coverage included harsh comments, such as the Tibetan Communist Party chief’s attack on “the Dalai Lama clique” that he said had to be destroyed. “The red flag with its five stars will always fly above Tibet,” he said.
One Tibetan official said most of the 1,300 people arrested after the demonstrations in March had been released, but there was no way to verify this. The authorities said an Amnesty International report on the imprisonment of more than 1,000 Tibetans did not have”an ounce of credibility.

The Chinese official media said the passage of the flame through Lhasa was a success from the security point of view and the Xinhua news agency said people were joyous and peaceful. The official search-engine Sohu said the flame’s journey had been a big success in Lhasa after arriving from Mount Everest. Government TV broadcast special programmes boasting about China’s economic development of Tibet but showed no film of military police present as the flame passed through Lhasa and Kashgar.
Several foreign journalists in Beijing told Reporters Without Borders that the recent claim in the official paper China Daily by Liu Qi, head of the official 2008 Olympics website BOCOG, that no request for interviews would be refused was false. Liu said the government would step up its propaganda before the Games so as to “create favourable public opinion.” One French journalist said there were more press conferences but face-to-face interviews with officials had become hard to obtain in recent months.

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Grace Wang is a Chinese student living in the US. From the Duke University, she tried to be a messenger betwwen the pro-Chinese and the pro-Tibet. She received death threats for that and her parents in China also had tourble. When sport make people crazy. She decided to tell her story in the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041802635_pf.html

We thought the communist party was ready to talk to the Tibetan government. Between approaches from the Dalai Lama, a positive communication, China now seems to position itself on the sports side only.

Their marketing is cheap. We can see that nobody will tell China what to do and China won’t let anybody’s rules. On April 29th, the first Tibetan demonstrators were sentenced for the March uprising. The first seven sentences ranged from 3 years to life. China accused these people of murder of 18 Chinese-Han civilians and a police officer. They are also said to have burnt 7 schools, 5 hospitals and a 120 homes. 908 shops were robbed evaluating damages at 244 millions Yuan. Yesterday, China acknowledged the assassination of a Tibetan demonstrator.

Since the Olympic torch was in Paris, a few anti-French demonstrations have started in China. The French people disrespected China by embracing the free Tibet cause.

Tibet is a part of China. French dissident can not understand why the Chinese government continues to prevent the Tibetan from independence and freedom, not only territorial independence but cultural freedom. From the Chinese side, it will be difficult to recognize any independence or autonomy. Giving autonomy to Tibet would encourage other minorities, like the Uyghur to ask for more freedom. It will also be the recognition of the difference between the Han, the main people of China, and the Tibetan people. What will happen and what did happened in Lhasa last March? What was the role played by the western media? What is the Chinese people reaction and what is it worth? Olympics, politics, a lot of people get it wrong.

March 10th 2008 was the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising. Was it linked to the Olympics? Was the Lhasa demonstration against the Olympics? Maybe not. The latest uprising on March 14th shows a problem in Tibet. Little footage was received and different interpretation can bias our judgment. Foreign journalists were forbidden in Tibet, the only one allowed were Chinese journalists. Sources said that a few gunshots were fired, not as much as the western media reported. However the week after between 150 and 300 Tibetan activists, journalists and their families were arrested. They are held somewhere. Some are going to be killed, some will have their organs removed and sold on the black market, like some Falung gong had. On the other hand the western media showed footage of the Nepalese police to illustrate the Tibetan looting. False information from both sides!

The western people took to heart the Tibetan cause and the Human rights in China by attacking the Olympic torch. The Chinese took that against an aggression against the Games and the people. Reactions and boycott against French companies show the Chinese nationalism. The length of visas has been shortened from 3 months to a month stay. Even Chinese students demonstrated against the boycott of the games. Everything was orchestrated by the embassies and the Party. The Beijing games are important to the Chinese people. It is an honour for them to hold the games. They are maybe more important than Tibet and the recognition of its identity. Even the tensions between China and France seem to be less tense than a week ago. By doing so and saying it would boycott French products, China made France be on its side. The contracts and the economy are larger than Human rights. On the people side, they will follow what the government says. In a few months, everything will be forgotten.

Even though no one thinks of a boycott from the athletes, the Chinese students living abroad, sent by their embassies demonstrated for the games and against a general boycott. The games can not be political. Demonstrating against the boycott becomes a political act. The human adventure lived by the athletes is one thing, but for the Chinese people the only thing that will remain is a great propaganda and the medals won by its athletes.