IOC Should Investigate and Publicize Abuses
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) should turn words into action and immediately establish a reporting mechanism for violations of media freedoms in China, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented many violations of China’s promise to allow press freedom in exchange for hosting the Olympic Games.

On August 14, 2008, the IOC spokesperson, Giselle Davies, ended months of IOC silence by saying that the committee “disapproved of any attempts to hinder a journalist who is going about doing his job seemingly within the rules and regulations.” Over the past year, the IOC has been provided extensive documentation of such abuses, including physical assaults of journalists, but has not publicly spoken about the issue or challenged the Chinese government.

“The IOC’s public expression of concern is welcome, but it won’t have any effect without real action,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The International Olympic Committee’s failure to address this problem highlights the urgent need for mechanisms to prevent further abuses.”

Human Rights Watch has documented almost daily violations of China’s commitment to the IOC to allow the foreign media “complete freedom to report” during the Beijing Games, as stipulated by the Chinese government’s temporary regulations, which allow foreign journalists to speak to “any consenting interviewee” between January 1, 2007 and October 17, 2008 (click here for a list of Chinese officials’ promises and statements made about human rights and the Olympics).

Since the Games opened on August 8, foreign journalists in Beijing have told Human Rights Watch that surveillance and harassment by security personnel has intensified. Those security personnel include plainclothes police, official Olympics volunteers, and Beijing citizens in neighbourhood committees who reporters say attempt to deliberately intimidate them and their sources by photographing and video-recording their movements. “Today I was checking one of (Beijing’s) parks and I was followed at times by five people, some of them filming me and taking photos of me. I feel like a target,” a foreign journalist told Human Rights Watch on August 7.

Link to HRW