2008 Beijing Games Human Rights News

Everyone agrees the Games are all about image and the Chinese government knows this.

The state-run CCTV was careful not to show the opening ceremony live, once again showing up the IOC with impunity, as we saw on the "Aujourd'hui la Chine" ("China Today") website.

When the inflexible IOC, an expert in washing its hands of matters, was asked about this by a foreign reporter, it referred the media to CCTV. Chinese living in the US protested strongly against the 12-hour delay in broadcasting the ceremony by the US network NBC, which wanted, thanks to the time difference with China, to draw the maximum audience. But there was no fuss about the 30-second delay in broadcasting the Brazil-Belgium football match on 7 August. Chinese officials said that was a measure to combat hooliganism.

No image was spared, especially during celebration of the national spirit. The British paper the Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that the pictures of huge footsteps in the skies of Beijing, which amazed the world during the opening ceremony, were prepared in advance by computers and broadcast in the Bird’s Nest stadium and by the world’s TV stations as if they were live. The masters of illusion are very good at this kind of thing.

Other images were more modest and less global but still noteworthy. The pictures of 300 immigrant workers who worked on the Olympic site (and who were then asked to return at once to their homes in the countryside so as not to pollute the heady Games atmosphere with their presence) were printed on clay bricks by young photographer Wen Fang and exhibited at Beijing’s Paris-Beijing art gallery, recalling Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s anonymous terracotta army.

More violent – and less tolerated by the authorities who don’t want to see even a glimpse of a Tibetan flag – is the film Leaving Fear Behind, made by Tibetans and showing the isolation and distress in their country.

The massive scale of the opening ceremony won China its first gold medal, observers agree. Even people who are usually critical, such as Hong Kong journalist Joyce Hor-Chung Lau, were impressed by the exploits of filmmaker Zhang Yimou and his cast of thousands. The mood was so dream-like inside the Bird’s Nest, said the BBC’s Beijing correspondent, James Reynolds, that the wildest rumours were circulating during the ceremony, including the absurd idea that a highly-trained panda was going to light the Olympic flame.

The organising committee nonetheless nearly had an incident on its hands when dozens of journalists were barred from entering the stadium on the grounds that, although they had press accreditation, they did not have tickets, a witness told this blog. The problem was quickly resolved but it gave rise to a little white lie in China Daily, which claimed apologies were given at a news conference which in fact never took place.

And then, as often happens when tens of thousands gather and billions of others are looking on, some people had to pay the price for all this global glamour. The “All roads lead to China” blog reports that the games have placed such a demand on China’s power grid that some provinces have been subject to restrictions and even blackouts.

And the nightmare continues for those who have the misfortune not to be part of the Party’s marvellous world. We have learned, for example, of the disturbing disappearance of dissident Hu Jia’s wife, who had been under house arrest in their small apartment in a Beijing suburb since Hu’s imprisonment.

Meanwhile, the games continue without incident, or almost. Christina Chan, a young Canadian activist of Chinese origin, was expelled from the Olympic equestrian venue in Hong Kong when she displayed a Canadian flag and then tried to unfurl a Tibetan flag as the competitors entered the venue.

Despite the worldwide acclaim, the Chinese authorities are still on high alert. Journalist Josh Gerstein even reports that plain-clothes police were going around the Olympic press centre with strange machines in their hands looking for the http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=28100Reporters Without Borders pirate radio station’s phantom transmitters.

Members of Reporters Without Borders today broadcast "Radio Without Borders," China's only independent FM radio station, in Beijing just hours before the start of the Olympic Games opening ceremony. In a programme lasting 20 minutes, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard and Chinese human rights activists called on the Chinese government to respect free speech.

"The Chinese authorities refused to issue visas to ten of our members but this has not stopped us from making ourselves heard in Beijing by means of a clandestine radio broadcast using miniaturised FM transmitters and antennas," Ménard said. "Reporters Without Borders devised and carried out this protest in a spirit of resistance against state control of the media."

The press freedom organisation added: "This is the first non-state radio station to have broadcast in China since the Communist Party took power in 1949. Only international Chinese-language radio stations broadcasting on the short wave would be able to break this news and information monopoly, but they are jammed by the authorities."

The Radio Without Borders broadcast began at 08:08 local time on 08/08/08, exactly 12 hours before the start of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. The programme, in English, French and Mandarin, was heard in on 104.4 FM in different districts of the Chinese capital.

Listen to the program in English :



In French :



In mandarin :


In his introduction, Ménard described the broadcast as a "gesture of defiance towards the Chinese authorities, who are still keeping dozens and dozens of journalists and Internet users in prison." Addressing the authorities, Ménard said: "Despite everything, there are people who are going to be able to speak out about things you don't want the public to hear, in the very heart of Beijing. Regardless of the measures you take, you will not get rid of free speech."

Ménard then urged the Chinese authorities to release prisoners of conscience and stop jamming the frequencies used by international radio stations broadcasting in Chinese. "You banned us from going to Beijing, you expelled us from China. But despite all that, we are here, making our voice heard peacefully, in a completely non-violent fashion. It is a way of saying censorship just won't work."

The broadcast included interviews with Chinese human rights activists who have found refuge abroad. A former journalist talked about the censorship and self-censorship that is imposed on her colleagues still in China. A human rights activist described the crackdown on Chinese activists in the run-up to the Olympics.

A former political prisoner described the appalling conditions in which he was held. "External pressure is essential to improve the situation of political prisoners," Yang Jianli said. Finally the director of Boxun, a US-based, Chinese-language website that is still blocked in China, talked about what motivates the site's volunteer contributors inside China who, despite the risks, post reports on the social and political situation.