BEIJING (Reuters) - The international media should have been told they would not have completely free access to the internet before they arrived to report the Beijing Olympics, IOC press chief Kevan Gosper told Reuters on Thursday.
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Paramilitary policemen walk in front of the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, at the Olympic Green in Beijing, July 30, 2008. (REUTERS/Joe Chan) |
As the row over censorship continued to rumble, Gosper said that both he and the international media had been taken by surprise that some sensitive websites had been blocked despite many assurances from Beijing organisers that they would be able to work normally during the Games, which start on Aug. 8.
Gosper said: "It's clear that I have been providing, on behalf of the IOC, incomplete information."
Gosper said he had never been told that some IOC officials had held discussions with local organisers BOCOG that some websites not directly connected to the Games could be blocked.
"Had I and the international media been informed earlier of this understanding that certain websites would be inaccessible, we would not now find ourselves in the position where they, as well as myself, have been taken by surprise," he said.
Rights watchdog Amnesty International condemned internet restrictions during the Games as "compromising fundamental human rights and betraying the Olympic values".
"This blatant media censorship adds one more broken promise that undermines the claim that the Games would help improve human rights in China," Amnesty East Asia researcher Mark Allison said in a statement.
COUNTLESS MEETINGS
Gosper told Reuters he was surprised that he had not heard the IOC had discussed the matter privately with BOCOG as, in his position as chairman of the IOC's press commission and vice-chairman of the Beijing co-ordination commission, he had been involved in countless meetings about press operations for the Games.
BOCOG spokesman Sun Weide said censorship would not prevent journalists reporting the Games though he acknowledged there would be no access to some websites, such as those of the Falun Gong, which he described as "an evil fake religion which has been banned by the Chinese government".
"According to Chinese law, the internet cannot be used to transmit information that is illegal, such as that promoting the evil cult Falun Gong. Nothing can appear which threatens the national internet," he told reporters on Thursday.
BOCOG consistently assured journalists attending press briefings ahead of the Games that they would have normal access to the internet.
Also on Thursday, a Chinese official said that temporary regulations for the period of the Olympics that ease reporting restrictions on foreign journalists would be extended past October, when they had been due to expire.
"China's open door to the foreign media will not close after the Games," the China Daily quoted Liu Binjie, head of China's General Administration of Press and Publications, as saying.
"We are mapping out a new regulation that we are confident will make China's media still more open and transparent."
The reporting rules ease curbs on foreign journalists' ability to report outside major cities but journalists still complain of facing hassles from local authorities.
(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Lindsay Beck)
(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics; and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)
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