A top Chinese official reiterated Beijing’s pledge yesterday to give foreign journalists unfettered access during the Olympic Games, despite skepticism by human rights advocates and continued harassment of reporters in China.
Li Changchun (李長春), the fifth-ranked official in the country, is encouraging foreign journalists to report “extensively” on the Games, the China Daily newspaper said.
“China will earnestly abide by relevant regulations regarding foreign journalists’ reporting activities in the country,” Li was quoted as saying, while touring the newly opened Beijing International Media Center on Thursday. The center will house non-accredited journalists for the Games.
The ability to report freely during the Olympic period was one of the promises China made when it was awarded the Olympic Games in 2001. While Chinese officials repeatedly have been on the record promising journalists unfettered access, foreign journalists have continued to be restricted and harassed.
“We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China,’’ Wang Wei (王偉) promised in 2001 when he was heading Beijing’s bid for the games.
Just last week, the German Olympic rights holder ZDF had a live interview on the Great Wall stopped when uniformed and plainclothes police barged in as a reporter was transmitting a show back to Germany.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Monday that China had violated its commitments on media freedom, and continues to block and threaten foreign journalists, with some receiving serious threats to their lives or safety.
Li said journalists can lodge complaints directly with Liu Qi (劉淇), president of the organizing committee for the Games, if they are unsatisfied.
Li is a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the highest bastion of power in the Communist Party.
Shaken by protests on international legs of the Olympic torch relay following the outbreak of deadly rioting in Tibet in March, China’s authoritarian government has appeared to backtrack on promises to let reporters work as they have at previous Olympics.
A law enacted 18 months ago for the Olympic period gave reporters freedom to move around the country, without prior permission, although Tibet has been off limits. The law has improved access in many areas, although reporting remains a problem in the provinces and journalists were barred access to a large swath of Tibetan areas of western China after the March riots.
Standing by Liu Qi, Li said he hoped foreign journalists can provide full coverage of the games, and tell the world the truth about China, the newspaper said.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said on Thursday in Lausanne, Switzerland, that despite journalists’ fears of restrictions and censorship, the media would have freedom to move and work in Beijing.
“Never will the media have had so many possibilities as today,” he said.
“Nothing is perfect and we are pushing very hard to get the maximum out of it. Today I think any objective observer must say that this is something new and this is something that will have a lasting legacy in China,” Rogge told reporters in an interview.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS