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Ensure that the temporary regulations on media freedom for foreign journalists are fully respected in the period before they officially expire on October 17, 2008.
Investigate fully the anonymous death threats against more than 10 foreign correspondents in China since mid-March 2008, protect the personal safety of those threatened and their family members, prosecute those individuals suspected of issuing those threats, and state publicly that such threats are unacceptable.
Intensify efforts to ensure that all elements of China’s government bureaucracy and security services are fully informed about the temporary regulations for foreign journalists’ reporting rights, and penalties for failing to uphold them.
Launch an urgent nationwide public education campaign on the temporary regulations for foreign journalists’ reporting rights to ensure that Chinese citizens are aware that during the period of the temporary regulations they can legally consent to be interviewed by foreign reporters.
Fully investigate incidents in which government officials, security forces, and their agents refuse to honor the temporary regulations and/or impede, obstruct, harass or detain foreign journalists and their local staff and sources in the course of legal reporting activities in China to help prevent future such incidents.
Create a formal mechanism for foreign journalist journalists to report instances of harassment, detention, and intimidation and identify foreign ministry staffers empowered to intervene can be contacted 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Ensure that the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s intervention and enforcement of the regulations meet with compliance from other officials.
Educate local government and security officials that MOFA officials have the right to demand compliance with and respect for the temporary regulations.
Establish a formal mechanism through which Chinese citizens who speak to foreign media can report harassment, intimidation, or detention by government officials and security forces which target citizens for links to foreign media.
Ensure that such reports are thoroughly investigated and perpetrators are punished for criminal acts.
Make the “temporary” regulations a permanent component of Chinese law and extend the same rights to Chinese journalists in line with Article 35 of China’s constitution.
Abolish legal ambiguities that threaten the freedom of Chinese journalists including prohibitions on reporting that “threatening the honor or interests of the nation.”
Cease the practice of formal reprimands or threats to cancel accreditation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of foreign correspondents who’s reporting merely touches on “sensitive” topics that the Chinese government would prefer the media didn’t cover.
Follow through on MOFA’s June 26 announcement that Tibet will reopen to the foreign media, and immediately and permanently lift all restrictions on the access to and operations of foreign media in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan communities in the neighboring provinces of Gansu, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Yunnan which have been in effect since March 15, 2008.
Ensure that foreign journalists’ movements and reporting activities in Tibet and Tibetan communities in the neighboring provinces of Gansu, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Yunnan aren’t subjected to obstructive surveillance or reprisals in line with Article 35 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China which guarantees “freedom of speech.”
Cease the seizure, examination, confiscation and deletion of journalists’ still and video camera footage.
Establish a 24-hour hotline in Beijing for foreign journalists to report violations of media freedom during August 2008, directly inform MOFA of these incidents and demand their speedy investigation.
Publicly press the Chinese government to uphold the temporary regulations.
Have an independent and reputable third party conduct monthly reports of media freedom in China until the temporary regulations expire on October 17, 2008. Publish those audits and pressure the Chinese government to improve its performance.
Publicly address any major human rights crisis or significant deterioration in China’s human rights situation which occurs in the run-up to and during the 2008 Olympic Games and Paralympics.
Cease issuing statements which provide inaccurate or misleading assessments of China’s human rights situation, particularly with regard to China’s adherence to its Olympics-related media freedom pledges.
Strongly protest the detention and imprisonment of individuals who have been criticized for calling for greater human rights in the run-up to the Beijing Games and demand their immediate release. Those individuals include:
1. Hu Jia, who openly challenged the Chinese government for failing to honor its Olympics-related human rights pledges and who was sentenced to 3.5 years imprisonment on April 3, 2008, for “inciting subversion against the state.”
2. Zeng Jinyan, wife of Hu Jia and fellow activist, who along with her infant daughter has spent more than a year under house arrest in her Beijing apartment.
3. Yuang Chunlin, detained in July 2007 for having initiated a petition entitled “We Want Human Rights, not the Olympics” and sentenced to five years in prison on March 24, 2008, on charges of “inciting subversion against state power.”
4. Ye Guozhou, who is serving a four-year prison sentence for organizing protests against forced evictions ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Ye’s brother, Ye Guoqiang, was detained in September on suspicion of “inciting subversion against state power.”
Stop censoring peaceful expression among athletes and others through Article 51 of the Olympic Charter, which stipulates that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious, or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
Amend the criteria for Olympic host city selection in order to ensure that, consistent with Olympic Charter’s goal of promoting “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” (First Fundamental Principle) and “preservation of human dignity” (Second Fundamental Principle), potential hosts’ human rights records be made an explicit factor in decisions. Governments with the worst human rights records should not be selected as hosts; in other cases, the IOC should set benchmarks for improvements to ensure that the staging of the Games does not directly or indirectly make the IOC complicit in abuses.
Create an IOC standing committee on human rights as a long-term mechanism to incorporate human rights standards into the Olympics. Employ this mechanism to develop human rights benchmarks for potential Olympics hosts, to monitor a host’s compliance with the benchmarks once the Games have been awarded, and to respond to any serious human rights abuses that take place in the run-up to or during the Games. The requirement of respect for basic rights could be included in the IOC Model Candidature for Olympic host countries.
Publicly disclose Olympics Host City Contracts, beginning with that of the Beijing Games, to allow maximum transparency and public understanding of the criteria which the IOC applies to the host city selection process.
- Demand that the Chinese government ensure the safety and legal reporting freedoms of media personnel from their country who cover the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
- Document and publicize cases in which media personnel from their country are illegally harassed, intimidated, and detained and demand that the Chinese government fully investigate and prosecute any individual found guilty of acts that amount to crimes.
- Urge the Chinese government to make media freedom a permanent component of Chinese law for both foreign and Chinese journalists.
- Urge the International Olympic Committee to create an IOC standing committee on human rights.
- Demand that the Chinese government ensure the safety and legal reporting freedoms of media personnel from your company who cover the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
- Document and publicize cases in which media personnel from your company are illegally harassed, intimidated, and detained and demand that the Chinese government fully investigate and prosecute any individual found guilty of such crimes.
- Urge the Chinese government to make media freedom a permanent component of Chinese law for both foreign and Chinese journalists.
- Urge the International Olympic Committee to create an IOC standing committee on human rights.
July 2008
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