China faces storm over Internet block

The WAN said China had “reneged” on a promise for Internet freedom and condemned China as “the world’s biggest jailer of journalists”, saying at least 30 journalists and 50 “cyber-dissidents” were incarcerated.

“The authorities have not only failed to honour their pledge, but they have intensified their crackdown on journalists and others who seek to exercise their right to freedom of expression.

“Foreign journalists now reporting from China are regularly harassed and even expelled, as was the case during the March 2008 events in Tibet,” said a WAN statement.

WAN, which represents 18,000 newspapers, called on the IOC “to hold China to its promises”, and called on athletes, sponsors, media and others to “exert serious pressure on the Chinese authorities to cease their flagrant and persistent abuses of human rights.”

Reporters Without Borders said it “condemns the International Olympic Committee’s acceptance of the fact the Chinese authorities are blocking access to certain websites at the Olympic Games media centre in Beijing.”

“The organization also condemns the cynicism of the Chinese authorities, who have yet again lied, and the IOC’s inability to prevent this situation because of its refusal to speak out for several years.”

Padraig Reidy, news editor of Index on Censorship, a British-based media freedom website, told AFP: “The fact that this is happening shouldn’t be the least bit surprising. China’s supposed commitment to human rights which was supposed to have won them the right to host the Olympics has failed at even the most basic level in access for journalists.”

Several newspapers around the world criticised China and the IOC.

The Berlin daily Tageespiegel said “Since Moscow in 1980, we have not seen a Games as unfree as those this year in Beijing. The IOC is responsible.”

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