Freedom of the press?

The scene stunned Germany at is breakfast table.

One recent morning, with 240,000 households tuned in to the ZDF television news program Morgen Magazin, viewers watched in disbelief as a live interview from the Great Wall of China near Beijing was broken up by Chinese police.

Correspondent Johannes Hano had just begun the interview when a pair of waving hands suddenly appeared, a surge of police stepped in — there were more than 30 in all — and finally a big hand came down on the camera’s lens and it was all over.

It happened live, on air, as hundreds of thousands of Germans looked on — a public relations disaster for China of the first order.

“We had to stop the segment, of course,” says ZDF’s deputy editor-in-chief Elmar Thevessen from Germany.

Viewers calling in were “surprised” and “angry,” he says.

At a closed-door meeting of world broadcasters in Beijing this month, Sun Weijia, the Beijing Olympic Games organizing committee’s media chief expressed “regret” for what happened.
He promised no such incident would happen again, officials say.

But will it? Will the international media finally enjoy the “complete freedom” Beijing organizers publicly promised on July 12, 2001 — the day before they won the rights to host the 2008 Summer Games?

“We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China,” Beijing organizing committee vice-president Wang Wei pledged at a press conference back then.

But even before these Games have begun, many say that promise has already been broken.
Recently, Human Rights Watch lambasted the Chinese government for obstructing and threatening foreign journalists — and their sources — in violation of continued pledges to ensure press freedom.

In a scathing 71-page report, the human rights watchdog documented in detail how foreign correspondents in China face harassment and intimidation by “government officials or their proxies” when they pursue stories that embarrass authorities, expose wrongdoing or document social unrest.

The effects of violating those pledges “will linger long after the last athletes have left Beijing,” the organization’s Sophie Richardson warned.

But that warning went unheeded.

China’s Olympic organizers have now gone one step further.

Reports indicate they intend to restrict live broadcasts from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square during the Olympic period to two narrow time slots per day: 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. till 11 p.m., local time.

Authorities want to keep a tight rein on Tiananmen. They fear it could become a focal point for potential protests.

But some observers were never persuaded by the promises of press freedom in the first place.

“I don’t think complete freedom is possible,” says Li Datong, the former editor of a leading government paper who is now one of China’s most insightful commentators.

“If nothing happens and you go out and do normal reporting on the Games, obviously you’re going to enjoy ‘complete freedom.’ Who is going to restrain sports reporting?

“But if something happens, like a protest — there’s going to be a problem.”

In Beijing the possibility of protests seems to grow slimmer by the day as security in and around the city continues to tighten.

Last week a cordon of checkpoints was established around Beijing.

Weeks ago a security force of 100,000 was put on alert inside the capital.

And still the potential for protest remains a Chinese leadership obsession — a nightmare waiting in the wings.

That’s not because protests never happen. Tens of thousands of protests and riots occur in China every year. But the Chinese government keeps such tight control on the domestic media that few protests ever get reported.

The government’s obsession is due to the arrival of 25,000 additional foreign journalists and the likelihood that any protest will be beamed instantly around the world — and the Chinese government would lose face.

“International media coverage is mainly about mianzi (face),” explains Li.

And so are these Games.

But if there are protests, they’ll be covered.

Veteran journalist Sandy MacIntyre, who directs news for APTN, the television network of The Associated Press, says he doubts restrictive measures will inhibit journalists from doing their job.

“We’ve signed up to be able to go anywhere and report anything,” he said in an interview from New York, “and that’s the way we intend to approach it on the ground.”