2008 Beijing Games Human Rights News - liberte_d_expression

Internal police documents reveal strategy with foreign journalists

noreply@rsfblog.org (RSF) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:45:00 +0200

Reporters Without Borders is releasing three Chinese police documents on official strategy towards the foreign media. While the aim of these documents is to ensure that the thousands of accredited foreign journalists in Beijing are free to conduct interviews, they also ask the police to prevent non-accredited journalists from working and above all to investigate the Chinese who talk to the press. This suggests there could be reprisals after the games, when all the journalists have gone.

Dated 25 July and entitled "Four directives for handling foreign journalists," the first document asks the police not to block their camera lenses (1), not to damage their equipment (2), not to confiscate their memory cards (3) and not to investigate when they are involved in minor offences (4).

The second document is entitled "Eight directives for not intervening when a foreign journalist is interviewing a Chinese." It tells police not to intervene if the journalist is accredited (1), if the journalist is accredited but is not asking political questions (2), if the person agrees to be interviewed (3), if the journalist asks about a third country (4), at news conferences given by foreign organisations that have permission (5), if the journalist is asking about sensitive matters but the interviewee is not causing people to gather and disrupt public order (6), if the interviewee talks about subjects such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and Falun Gong or criticises the Party or government but is not behaving outrageously (7), if a journalist photographs or films policemen without disrupting their work (8).

As regards point 7, the directive tells the police to "speak to the interviewee in accordance with Chinese legislation and to follow and monitor the journalist." There have been more than ten cases of Chinese being arrested after trying to alert international public opinion to abuses they have suffered. Two Beijing women in their late 70s were sentenced to a year of reeducation through work on 17 August for asking permission to demonstrate during the games, while Zhang Wei, a former resident of Beijing’s Qianmen district, was arrested on 9 August after complaining to foreign journalists about the way she was rehoused.

Reporters Without Borders has seen that, during protests by Christian or pro-Tibet foreigners in Beijing, the authorities prefer to let police disguised as young patriots or members of civilian surveillance groups intervene rather than directly arrest the demonstrators.

At the same time, the public security department’s campaign to intimidate Beijing human rights activists before the Olympic Games enabled the authorities to sideline these spokesmen for social, religious and political demands. More than 40 of them were put under house arrest, forced to leave Beijing or forced to go into hiding for fear of reprisals.

The third document is an analysis by the Criminal Affairs Bureau of three incidents involving pro-Tibet activists, Christians and a delinquent. Directives tell the police that the priority is to carry out a thorough investigation and avoid bad publicity. The Criminal Affairs Bureau recommends arresting foreign demonstrators and deporting them as quickly as possible. The police are told to do everything possible to "depoliticise" their actions by stressing the public order consequences to the public.

Point 4 of the directives tells the Beijing police to deal with "religious cases as quickly as possible." They are told to "keep the crowd at a distance, devise all sorts of ploys to defuse the situation and immediately inform the Religious Affairs Department."

Read the latest entry on BBC correspondent James Reynolds' blog.

Chen is no longer answering his phone

noreply@rsfblog.org (RSF) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:21:22 +0200

Chen Dashan is a grieving father who cannot get to the bottom of his 20-year-old daughter’s mysterious death while she was in the army. A military band conductor, she died suddenly and inexplicably after a concert in 2006. The last time he saw her, she was a lifeless body in the back of an ambulance. Her superiors claimed she was the victim of a heart attack but the authorities never paid the required compensation to her family. Her father suspects a cover-up and their indifference has only compounded his grief.

This was why Chen filed several requests for permission to demonstrate during the Olympic Games in the parks that the Chinese authorities have supposedly earmarked for public protests. “The pressure on the government is very strong, with the games, but it will be impossible afterwards,” he told a Wall Street Journal reporter. But his requests were all denied. So last Sunday, 10 August, he went to Tiananmen Square to distribute leaflets explaining his campaign on behalf of his daughter.

AFP Video has done a report on the difficulties of demonstrating in Beijing, and it shows this ordinary, 53-year-old father from northern China confronting an icy police officer. After distributing a few leaflets, Chen was led away. Since then, he has not been answering his telephone.

As for the IOC...

noreply@rsfblog.org (RSF) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:20:00 +0200

Despite the daily attempts by the IOC and Chinese organisers to varnish reality, coverage of the Olympic Games is beginning to turn into a trial of strength between the foreign press and the Party’s legion of little soldiers, including policemen and police spies.

As Reporters Without Borders has related, British journalist John Ray of London-based Independent Television News was manhandled and restrained by the police for 20 minutes today while his cameraman, Ben England, was roughly pushed away. Why? Because they were filming pro-Tibet activists unfurling a “Free Tibet” banner less than 1 kilometre from the Olympic stadium. The Foreign Correspondents Club of China stepped in, demanding an apology from the Chinese authorities. The Chinese organising committee says there will be an “investigation”. As for the IOC, it remains to be seen what wall of ice it will erect in response to the incident.

Would Students for a Free Tibet and the journalists interested in covering their protest have had more luck in the official “Protest Areas” designated by the Chinese authorities? You wouldn’t think so after reading the City Weekend website’s delightful report on these areas. Particularly good is the bit at the end listing the conditions under which one can protest “freely” – as it were. Far from the humour of this little trip to the land of lies, Human Rights Watch has a report about the ordinary Chinese citizens who had the guts to request permission to protest, and were all refused. One of them, Ji Sizun, even paid for his boldness with his freedom. The Chinese organising committee had not yet reacted officially. As for the IOC, it remains to be seen what wall of ice it will erect in response to the incident.

No problems here…

noreply@rsfblog.org (RSF) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:55:00 +0200

The notebooks of several Chinese journalists were confiscated by police at a press conference on Sunday given by the family of an American tourist killed the day before. An Associated Press reporter asked the Chinese organisers and the IOC about this at the daily press conference on Monday.

BOCOG gave its standard reply to an embarrassing question: “Chinese laws must be obeyed. Ask the police. It’s nothing to do with us.” IOC spokesperson Giselle Davis said very diplomatically she was “not aware of this, I will investigate.” You want to bet on it…?

Free hugs strictly forbidden

noreply@rsfblog.org (RSF) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0200

With the season of love in full flow and the Olympic Games about to start in Beijing, an ordinary Chinese youth decided to offer his fellow citizens “free hugs” just as people do in many western cities. But things did not go as planned. It turned out that the Chinese police disapprove of such beatnik-style informality.

Mugabe, Ronaldinho, old men on park benches and taxis with big ears

noreply@rsfblog.org (RSF) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:55:00 +0200

Foreigners are welcome in China but only as long as they help to infuse hearts with patriotic pride.

Zimbabwe’s embarrassing President Robert Mugabe, for example, was forced to fly back to Harare yesterday despite being a loyal ally. It seems the authorities decided that allowing such a notoriously brutal despot into the “Bird’s Nest” for the opening ceremony would cause as much “loss of face” as the presence of ordinary human rights activist. The Sydney Morning Herald said it had been told it took an enormous amount of persuasion to get Mugabe to return to his “starving billionaires.” Mugabe’s straight-faced spokesman nonetheless insisted that “Comrade Bob” attached “too much importance” to the talks under way with the opposition to stay in Hong Kong. Impatience is second nature for him, it seems.

The presence of Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho, on the other hand, has set hearts fluttering in China, and not just in the ordinary public. The Shenyang Evening News organised a ceremony for Ronaldinho and his legendary trainer “Dunga” that was steeped in enthusiasm and patriotic fervour. In its account of the event, the website Danwei.org shows how the Middle Kingdom is delighted to be at the centre of the world and can even find reasons to be proud in a visit from a well-known footballer.

Meanwhile, ordinary foreigners, those who are not celebrities or dictators, are being welcomed in Beijing with permanent surveillance. Radio Free Asia reports that microphones are to be placed in the capital’s taxis, enabling indiscreet but politically educated ears to learn everything that is said in these rolling confessionals. For those who cannot afford to take taxis, there are the little old men on the neighbourhood public benches with red armbands. According to writer Jen Lin-Liu in the New York Times on 4 August, they have been given the job of watching out for “suspicious activity” in places frequented by western visitors.