Freedom of Press: December 2007 Archives

USA Today
December 11, 2007

The Olympics, to be held next summer in Beijing, are a source of immense national pride. China's communist government is presenting the Games as one huge coming out party, proof that it's a respected international power. To get the Olympics, it made promises on improving human rights in general and press freedom in particular.

Those promises, however, are looking increasingly empty.

In the past few months, at least 60 foreign journalists have been obstructed or detained by Chinese police -- this after China agreed in January to relax restrictions on foreign reporters, allowing them to travel more freely.

Swiss TV correspondent Barbara Luthi, for example, was recently hit and detained by authorities in Shenyou, a village near Beijing where unrest led to the deaths of several people two years ago. Two more Swiss journalists were detained as they reported on villagers who had been threatened in connection with a land dispute.

China also plans to conduct ID checks on 20,000 or more journalists covering the Games. The checks could be used to bar those who want to report on sensitive issues. "If they do not pass the tests, their accreditation requests will be refused," said Chinese official Yang Minghui, according to the press watch group Reporters Without Borders.

That China is hugely sensitive to criticism now is plain. Complaints by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) led to the easing of rules on foreign journalists. And when Hollywood stars threatened to call the Summer Games the "Genocide Olympics," Beijing belatedly pressured Sudan, where it buys oil, over Darfur. With pressure off on both those issues, the Chinese authorities are backsliding. This is no time to let up.

China has changed rapidly over the past quarter-century, but political freedoms haven't kept up with economic ones. Reporters Without Borders has documented about 100 Chinese journalists, cyberdissidents and free-speech activists jailed for "subversion" or "disseminating state secrets" -- often for revealing things the authorities want to hide, such as environmental dangers.

This moment, when the Chinese are susceptible to pressure, is a unique opportunity for the IOC to promote the cause of press freedoms. The more China opens up before the Games, the harder it will be to shut back down once the torch moves on.

By The Associated Press | The New York Times
05 December 2007

(Geneva, Switzerland): China continues to evict 13,000 people each month in preparation for the Beijing Olympics, despite worldwide attention and increased scrutiny, a housing rights group said Wednesday.

The Center on Housing Rights and Evictions said a recent trip to the Chinese capital confirmed an estimate it made earlier this year that 1.5 million people would be displaced by the time the 2008 Games are held.

Beijing says the group is grossly inflating the number of people being relocated as a result of the Olympic preparations, and that residents are content with the compensation they have received.

''Despite courageous protests inside China, and condemnation by many international human rights organizations, the Beijing municipality and Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games have persisted with these evictions and displacements,'' said Jean du Plessis, the Geneva-based COHRE's deputy director.

The group -- which claimed in June that 1.25 million had already been displaced -- said it returned to Beijing in August and found that forced evictions were continuing unabated.

In September, the Beijing municipality demolished several buildings in a run-down neighborhood called the ''petitioners' village'' in Fengtai District, which provided housing for thousands from all over China who came to complain to the central government about land seizures, forced evictions and corruption, COHRE said.

''Evictions in Beijing often involve the complete demolition of poor peoples' houses,'' the group said. ''The inhabitants are then forced to relocate far from their communities and workplaces, with higher transportation costs driving them further into poverty.

''In Beijing, and in China more generally, the process of demolition and eviction is characterized by arbitrariness and lack of due process. In many cases, tenants are given little or no notice of their eviction and do not receive the promised compensation.''

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The New York Times | Editorial
December 2nd, 2007

For a company that ostensibly believes in the Internet's liberating power, Yahoo has a gallingly backward understanding of the value of free expression.

The company helped Beijing's state police uncover the Internet identities of two Chinese journalists, who were handed 10 years in prison for disseminating pro-democracy writings. Testifying before Congress last year about one case, Yahoo's legal counsel said the company was unaware of the nature of the investigation. Did he miss the language about providing "state secrets to foreign entities" -- a red flag for a political prosecution?

Last month, Yahoo settled a suit by the families of the jailed journalists but it did not admit doing wrong and is refusing to change its procedures to avoid becoming a stool pigeon for China's police state again.

Yahoo's collaboration is appalling, and Yahoo is not the only American company helping the Chinese government repress its people. Microsoft shut down a blogger at Beijing's request. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft censor searches in China. Cisco Systems provided hardware used by Beijing to censor and monitor the Internet.

These companies argue that it is better for the Chinese people to have a censored Internet than no Internet. They say that they must abide by the laws of the countries they operate in. But the Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, the press, association and assembly. Those guarantees may be purely symbolic, but these companies -- which loudly protest Chinese piracy of their intellectual property -- have not tried to resist. What they are resisting are efforts in Congress that could help them stand against repressive governments.

Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act in the House. It would fine American companies that hand over information about their customers to foreign governments that suppress online dissent. The bill would at least give American companies a solid reason to decline requests for data, but the big Internet companies do not support it. That shows how much they care about the power of information to liberate the world.