Journalists manhandled by Chinese security at Beijing Olympics
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China says reporters have been tailed and manhandled by security despite assurances from security during the Beijing Winter Olympics.
According to China's Foreign Correspondents' Club (FCCC), despite assurances from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), conditions for covering the Beijing Winter Olympics fell short of international standards.
While global attention is focused on China more than ever before, the Chinese government and Olympic officials have failed to uphold their own rules concerning accredited foreign media. When journalists attempted to interview athletes and locals, "government interference" was regularly observed, both inside and outside the venues.
A number of journalists who covered Olympic events and related stories were subjected to online trolling and abuse by the FCCC. Occasionally, Chinese state media accounts and Chinese diplomats were behind these attacks, the report explained, describing an observed aspect of state-backed online harassment and propaganda campaigns.
There are numerous allegations of intimidation, obstruction, and harassment in the FCCC statement, some of which the IOC - widely criticized for awarding the Games to a government with a record of crimes against humanity - had dismissed as isolated incidents.
Reporter dragged from live Olympics coverage by Chinese officials.
A Beijing Olympic official prevented a foreign reporter from interviewing a Hong Kong athlete after an Olympic ski event, a space supposedly governed by Olympic rules. During a live broadcast of Dutch national broadcaster NOS, a reporter was dragged off camera by plainclothes security men despite clearly standing in a spot police had directed him to just minutes before.
Security officials grabbed Sjoerd den Daas as he reported live outside the Olympic "bubble" at the opening ceremony in Beijing.
IOC said it was an isolated incident that would not affect foreign media reporting at the Games, but FCCC said foreign reporters were often tailed or manhandled by security officials or authorities while trying to cover the Games outside venues. A France 24 correspondent said they were assigned a "guide" when reporting from outside the bubble, who reported back if their interview "strays" from the official narrative. Beijing's press tightening was "contrary to the Olympic spirit", the FCCC said.
It added: “The FCCC urges the Chinese authorities to uphold their own stated rules on accredited foreign press in China: namely, to allow journalists to book and conduct their own interviews without threat of state interference and to report freely in public areas. Unfortunately, neither rule was enforced at a time when global attention was trained on China more than ever.”
There have been increasing reports of harassment, both online and in person, as well as government-led restrictions on press freedom in China in recent years. The FCCC accused Beijing officials of "continually stymying" media coverage of the preparations and lead up to the Olympics. Beijing says it has never recognized the FCCC but guarantees freedom of reporting by international media on the Games in accordance with "relevant Chinese policies".
*This article contains information sourced from Guardian.
