China to ease restrictions on foreign journalists for '08 Summer Olympics

BEIJING -- Press freedom got a new -- but temporary -- boost in China yesterday when the government announced that it would allow foreign journalists greater autonomy in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Foreign journalists usually need permission from Chinese authorities before conducting interviews and traveling anywhere outside the city where they are based. While the rules are only loosely enforced, authorities have used them selectively to clamp down on journalists covering sensitive stories.

Liu Jianchao, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said the government will lift these restrictions from Jan. 1 next year until the end of the 2008 games to make it easier for foreign reporters to travel freely across the country, including in the sensitive provinces of Tibet and Xinijang, where separatist sentiments are simmering and official censorship has been strong. But once the Olympics are over, the old restrictions will be reinstated, Liu said.

The government's decision to liberalize its press rules appears to have been driven by pressure from the International Olympic Committee, the European Union, and media companies. Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, had told reporters months ago that the "new media regulations will come out toward the end of the year and we are waiting for that."

The change fulfills an old commitment. In 2001, Wang Wei, who headed Beijing's Olympic bid, had promised international journalists they would have "complete freedom to report when they came to China." Olympic organizers said this was essential for any nation hosting the Olympics as the number of press people covering the games is usually higher than the number of athletes participating.

Still, since Beijing was handed the Olympic torch in 2004, journalists from 15 countries have reported 72 instances of harassment by authorities, the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China in Beijing has said. In July last year, for example, two BBC journalists were detained and strip-searched while researching a land dispute in Dingzhou, Hebei Province.

The government is not relaxing restrictions on Chinese journalists. Reflecting this double standard, a Chinese court yesterday upheld a three-year prison sentence for Zhao Yan, a researcher with The New York Times. Zhao was convicted of fraud after he reported on official corruption and peasant rights before he joined the Times.

Reporters Without Borders, the press freedom group, took note of China's diverging treatment: tolerance for foreign media, intolerance for Chinese reporters.

"The campaigns against the archaic restrictions on the work of the foreign press have not been in vain," said the organization, which has called China the world's leading jailer of journalists, with 32 in prison as of January.

"But this positive development is eclipsed by today's appeal court decision to uphold a three-year prison sentence for New York Times researcher Zhao Yan," the group said in a statement.

Several Chinese citizens have also been beaten and arrested for talking with foreign reporters.

The latest case to grab the headlines was that of Fu Xiancai, 47, a farmer in central Chongqing province. Fu was taken in and interrogated by the local police chief after he complained to a German news crew about local corruption. Shortly after, he was mysteriously assaulted by thugs and beaten so badly he is now paralyzed. A police investigation claimed Fu's injuries were self-inflicted.

Part of the reason Chinese authorities have been clamping down on the domestic media is rising unrest. Last year, there were 87,000 public protests across China.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.