[hr-media] China: Media Freedom Under Assault Ahead of 2008 Olympics

(Hong Kong, May 31, 2007) -- The Chinese government is backtracking on new
rules that allow much greater freedom to foreign journalists, and is
continuing to deny comparable freedoms to Chinese journalists, Human
Rights Watch said today.

Moreover, there are indications that a further tightening of restrictions
on the domestic media -- already subject to systemic censorship and
recurrent crackdowns -- is looming, and journalists' sources are being
targeted for reprisal by local officials.

"The Chinese government is already failing to deliver on its pledge to
fully lift restrictions for foreign journalists ahead of the Beijing
Games," said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights
Watch. "These arbitrary restrictions on press freedoms undermine the new
regulations, and raise questions about the government's commitment to
implement them in the first place."

The new freedoms are set out in the "Service Guide for Foreign Media,"
published on the Web site of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the
Olympic Games. That document states that "the Regulations on Reporting
Activities by Foreign Journalists shall apply to the coverage of the
Beijing Olympic Games and the preparation as well as political, economic,
social and cultural matters of China by foreign journalists, in conformity
with Chinese laws and regulations." The temporary regulations are in
effect from January 1, 2007 until October 17, 2008.

But the new temporary regulations intentionally exclude domestic
journalists from enjoying such freedoms. Chinese citizens who work for
foreign media organizations in China are likewise excluded, as Chinese law
expressly forbids their citizens from working as journalists for foreign
publications or electronic media and relegates them instead to the roles
of "assistant" or "researcher."

"There is no justification for denying to Chinese journalists even the
limited freedoms that their foreign colleagues enjoy," said Richardson.
"If China is genuine about press freedom for the Olympics, it must also
emancipate its own journalists."

While China's constitution nominally guarantees "publishing freedom," an
array of national media regulations which include vague and sweeping
prohibitions on the publication of material that "harms the honor or the
interests of the nation," "spreads rumors," or "harms the credibility of a
government agency," are implicit threats to Chinese journalists who pursue
stories deemed sensitive by the government. According to the Committee to
Protect Journalists, China already jails more journalists than any other
country in the world, with some 30 known cases of journalists currently
imprisoned for their reporting activities.

Prominent lawyers representing civil rights and human rights cases have
also reported being given a blanket prohibition by state security agents
requiring them to stop talking to foreign media, and several localities
have adopted regulations prohibiting lawyers and court officials from
talking to the media.

"The Chinese government must acknowledge that the freedom to report is not
a privilege that can be subjected to the whims of local officials. It must
be consistently and unequivocally upheld in all situations," said
Richardson.

Despite the official pledge to allow foreign journalists to report freely
from across China, several foreign journalists report having been told
that in fact there are certain areas or regions they still cannot visit
and certain subjects they cannot cover.

In March 2007, the military stopped BBC correspondent James Reynolds from
reporting on the aftermath of a riot in Hunan province, telling him the
new regulations were "only for Olympics-related stories." In at least four
other instances since January 1, foreign correspondents have been stopped
or detained in areas including villages of HIV-AIDS sufferers in Henan
province and along China's border with North Korea. The responsible state
security personnel were either unaware of or unwilling to abide by the new
regulations. Those journalists were released only after urgent phone calls
to Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials demanding that local police
respect their reporting freedom.

"We are encouraged by indications that China's government has shown a
willingness on certain occasions to ensure that officials at the
grassroots enforce these new freedoms for foreign correspondents when
pressed to do so," Richardson said. "But this should obviously be the rule
for all journalists, not the exception."

Several foreign correspondents have been refused access to Tibet, a region
with a long history of Chinese repression and for which journalists and
tourists alike have long had to obtain special permission to visit. At a
regular Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference in February, an
unidentified foreign correspondent stated that several journalists had
recently been refused permission to visit despite the temporary
regulations, and asked whether the regulations extended to coverage of
Tibet.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Jiang Yu on February 13 justified
the refusals as necessary due to unspecified "restraints in natural
conditions and reception capacity" in Tibet, and said that foreign
correspondents must still get permission from local authorities to report
from the region despite the new temporary regulations. Other journalists
who have taken the Chinese government's temporary regulations on reporting
freedom at their word and traveled to Tibet independently without official
permission have been subsequently summoned and criticized by the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, which is responsible for the accreditation
of foreign journalists.

Tim Johnson, correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers of the US, wrote an
article in May about the government's "comfortable housing" campaign in
which he reported the relocation of some 250,000 Tibetans "largely at
their own expense and without their consent." Johnson was subsequently
told by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' head of the information
department for North America, Europe and Oceania that his reporting from
Tibet included statements considered "unacceptable" by the Chinese
government, such as his assertion that foreign reporters are generally
allowed in Tibet just once a year, and that China's policy is repressive
toward Tibetans.

On his blog, Johnson described the frustrations correspondents face in
trying to get the Chinese government to observe its own regulations on
foreign media freedom in Tibet and the risks that Tibetans face in
speaking with foreign reporters: "I had sought permission to go far in
advance through the Foreign Ministry and foreign affairs office of Lhasa,
but received no reply ... (and) once I had arrived, security agents
followed me frequently, and people I had contact with were subject to
lengthy interrogation and even hefty fines."

"If the government is trumpeting commitments to new reporting freedoms,
but then taking those freedoms away through incremental regulations and
arbitrary actions against individual journalists, then there hasn't really
been any progress at all," Richardson said.

Public Security Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials also
routinely subject domestic Chinese assistants, researchers and translators
of foreign news bureaus to questioning and intimidation. "I was told
directly that I am responsible for what my boss writes and that I must
report to them when we plan to do ‘sensitive' stories," a Chinese
assistant to a foreign television network told Human Rights Watch. "All
the Chinese assistants face these risks and we have no protection."

Even those Chinese citizens working for major international news outlets
are vulnerable. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the New York Times in Beijing
is serving a three-year prison sentence that runs to September 2007 after
being convicted of fraud in a case that was marred by multiple violations
of due process and concerns that his conviction was politically motivated.
Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called for his release.

Intimidation and retaliation against foreign journalists' sources and
interviewees is still prevalent. Fu Xiancai, an outspoken advocate for
villagers displaced for the Three Gorges Dam, was beaten by an unknown
assailant on June 8, 2006, after local police questioned him about his
interview with German television station ARD. Security officers in
Chongqing municipality (southwest China) threatened a local
environmentalist assisting a European journalist with a story on toxic
pollution, warning that the activist might face physical danger if he
returned to the area.

According to another foreign correspondent familiar with the incident, the
authorities recognized that the temporary regulations legally permitted
the ARD journalist to do what she was doing; "the local powers-that-be
just decided to go thuggish and go after the journalist's source ."

Human Rights Watch is concerned that the Chinese government will tighten
its existing stranglehold on local journalists to ensure overall control
of information disseminated by state media in the run-up to the Beijing
Olympic Games.

Chinese journalists have expressed fears that rules due to be issued on
July 1 from the General Administration for Press and Publications that
will tighten the registration requirements of domestic print media in
China indicate a looming crackdown on publications that at times challenge
the government line. Several Chinese journalists have privately told Human
Rights Watch that they anticipate the new regulations will strengthen the
government's ability to shut down "offensive" publications affiliated with
larger state-owned media, but which lack licenses and registration.
Publications that have gained large readerships for taking courageous
stances in reporting cases of corruption and sensitive subjects are
expected to be particularly vulnerable to the new regulations ahead of
preparations for the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in
October.

In the past two months, the Chinese government has hit at the popular
magazines Commoner and Lifeweek through measures including mass transfers
of its reporters and editors to other publications after the two magazines
covered "sensitive" topics including official corruption in the
countryside and events during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution period. In
January 2006, the Propaganda department sacked the editor of Freezing
Point, a weekly supplement to the China Youth Daily newspaper, and
temporarily suspended its publication before resuming it under a new
editorial team. A government document accused Freezing Point of "viciously
attacking the socialist system" for acts including the publication of an
article that criticized official middle school history textbooks.

Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to extend to Chinese
domestic journalists the same reporting freedoms granted to foreign
journalists under the temporary regulations and ensure that those rights
are upheld.

"Not only is China violating freedom of expression, but it is also
engaging in invidious discrimination against its own nationals," said
Richardson.

Both rights are guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) to which China is bound as a member of the United Nations, as well
as the International Covenant on Cultural and Political Rights, which
China has signed but not yet ratified.

"China's long-planned 2008 Beijing Olympics ‘coming-out party' can
easily become a public relations disaster if the government persists in
failing to honor its obligations to media freedom," said Richardson.

For more of Human Rights Watch's work on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing,
please visit:  http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/china/beijing08/

For more of Human Rights Watch's work on China, please visit:  
http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=asia&c=china

Human Rights Watch Press release