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Gold Medal For Censorship
Keep this symbol for the 2012 Games
As thousands of journalists prepare for the Beijing Olympic Games, it has emerged that visiting hacks will not be allowed the same freedoms in China as they may enjoy at home. Chinese officials admit that internet access for reporters will not be completely uncensored.
Sites related to Falun Gong, the religious group China has banned and appears unduly paranoid about, will be blocked, while journalists will be forbidden to access broader news and human-rights related websites. An Amnesty International report on human rights in China was among those blocked, as are newspapers which refer to Tibet.
The latest admission flies in the face of previous promises from the Chinese authorities. Journalist were to be allowed free reporting rights - indeed many, including the International Olympic Commission, appeared to believe that freedom of the foreign press would lead to greater freedoms for Chinese journalists.
No such luck. As Amnesty reports, “By continuing to persecute and punish those who speak out for human rights, the Chinese authorities have lost sight of the promises they made when they were granted the Games seven years ago."
The report continues, “The Chinese authorities are tarnishing the legacy of the Games. They must release all imprisoned peaceful activists, allow foreign and national journalists to report freely and make further progress towards the elimination of the death penalty.”
Other press freedom groups, such as Reporters sans Frontičres, have also criticised the Chinese authorities for broken promises.
"Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky’s outraged comment about the holding of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow - “Politically, a grave error; humanly, a despicable act; legally, a crime” - remains valid for 2008," RSF concludes.
That said, it is unlikely that hosting the Olympics should be a privilege enjoyed only by democracies. There is little in the modern history of the Games to suggest that this should always be the case, though the IOC has grandiose delusions that the Olympics can speed democracy and human rights. The four demands Amnesty made of Beijing haven't been fulfilled by all the 28 hosts prior to China.
The Chinese, for their part, no longer pretend that their Games are about democracy and human rights: Beijing will be an unashamed celebration of China's super-power status, and to hell with complaints by foreign journalists.
It's ironic, too, that as the IOC awarded the 2008 Games to a nation it believed was on the road to liberal democracy, it awarded the 2012 Games to London, capital of a nation currently divesting itself of ancient liberties.
