Olympics: A curious switch at RTHK
Last night, a staffer at Radio Television Hong Kong told me that he is worried about the timing of the appointment of a new head for RTHK. An official government announcement Thursday, the day before the Olympic Games open, said that 65-year-old Franklin Wong Wah-kay will become RTHK’s new head. A long-time Hong Kong government…
RFA reporter unable to enter China to cover Games
Hong Kong, August 8, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that Dhondup Gonsar, an American citizen of Tibetan ethnicity who works for the U.S. government-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia (RFA), has not yet received press accreditation from Olympic organizers that would allow him to enter China to cover the Olympic Games, which begin…
Olympics-China Media Watch: What protesters?
On the eve of the opening ceremony, Xinhua News Agency waxes philosophical about the torch’s journey tomorrow to the Bird’s Nest, its home for the next three weeks. It hasn’t been an easy road, and Xinhua refers to the “obstacles” the torch encountered in foreign cities, as well as the Sichuan earthquake in May that…
Olympics: Qik! Get me my camera!
Despite all the security around the Games, two protesting groups did manage to get their messages out yesterday. Students for a Free Tibet managed to climb two light standards near the heavily guarded, iconic Bird’s Nest Stadium and display pro-Tibet banners for more than an hour. Later in the day, three Americans protesting China’s birth…
Olympics: CPJ urges Bush to highlight jailed journalists
CPJ wrote an open letter to President Bush today, calling on him to raise the issue of China’s jailed journalists when he gets to Beijing. We put the current number of journalists behind bars at 26, which makes China the largest jailer of journalists in the world, the dubious distinction it has held since 1999.…
CPJ urges Bush to raise concern about jailed Chinese journalists
Dear President Bush, We are heartened to hear that on Thursday, before embarking for Beijing to attend the Olympic opening ceremony, you will deliver a speech in Bangkok reiterating U.S. commitment to press freedom and other human rights. The Associated Press, which reported on the prepared text of your speech, also said that you are expected to raise these issues with China’s leaders once you arrive in Beijing.
Olympics-China Media Watch: Nationalist fervor and the Olympics
Basketball star Yao Ming carried the Olympic torch through Tiananmen Square today in the triumphant final leg of a relay fraught with protest. His long-legged saunter under the gaze of Mao’s portrait captured headlines in today’s Web news outlets, along with speculation about who will light the torch at the opening ceremony of the Games on Friday. Also…
Olympics: Dark skies for Games? Maybe ‘Sunshine Government’ can clear them
Yesterday, I posted two pieces that showed how China’s good intentions toward the media can go wrong, or never get under way in the first place. The first item described a Reuters report on new guidelines that had been handed down to the police about how to handle the media if an embarrassing demonstration should…
Olympics: An Olympian Challenge? Getting There
Visas into China have been hard to get since early this year, when new policies were instituted. The tighter restrictions had already hit me in late February, when I tried to get a tourist visa to visit my wife’s family in Beijing. I was in Hong Kong to launch the 2007 edition of CPJ’s annual…
Police in China detain, beat Japanese reporters; Reuters staffer threatened
Hong Kong, August 6, 2008—Reporters covering the aftermath of Monday’s attack on a border police outpost in Kashgar have been detained, beaten, and harassed, according to international news reports. Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported today that police in Kashgar dragged Masami Kawakita, a photographer from the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper’s Tokyo headquarters, and Shinji Katsuta, a…