publications

VI. Recommendations

To the Chinese Government

  • Ensure that all elements of China’s government bureaucracy and security services are fully informed about the new temporary regulations for foreign journalists’ reporting rights, and that those agencies fully understand their obligations in honoring the regulations.
  • Sponsor a nationwide public education campaign on the temporary regulations for foreign journalists’ reporting rights to ensure that ordinary Chinese are aware that during the period of the temporary regulations they can legally consent to be interviewed by foreign reporters.
  • Punish government and security officials who refuse to honor the temporary regulations and impede, obstruct, harass, or detain foreign journalists in the course of legal reporting activities in China.
  • Ensure that foreign correspondents don’t face harassment, intimidation, or detention by plainclothes thugs.
  • Identify, arrest, and prosecute plainclothes thugs who harass, intimidate or detain foreign and Chinese journalists.
  • Lift restrictions on foreign journalists’ access to and reporting from the Tibet Autonomous Region.
  • 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.
  • Cease the surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of the Chinese staff of foreign correspondents and their sources by government and security officials as well as plainclothes thugs.
  • Create a formal mechanism for foreign journalists to report instances of harassment, detention and intimidation and identify foreign ministry staffers empowered to intervene who can be contacted 24 hours a day, seven days a week when such cases occur.
  • Cease the practice of designating dozens of topics as “sensitive” such that they cannot be covered by Chinese journalists. Determine what is sensitive in accordance with international practice, and periodically review the topics.
  • Abolish legal ambiguities that threaten the freedom of Chinese journalists including prohibitions on reporting that “threatens the honor or interests of the nation.”
  • Cease the practice of formal reprimands by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of foreign correspondents whose reporting merely touches on “sensitve” topics that the Chinese government would prefer the media didn’t cover.

To the International Olympic Committee (IOC)

  • Urge the Chinese government to honor its agreement to the IOC by fully implementing the temporary regulations on reporting freedoms for foreign journalists.
  • Urge the Chinese government to make media freedom a permanent component of Chinese law for both foreign and Chinese journalists beyond the October 17, 2008, deadline for the temporary regulations for foreign correspondents.
  • Document and publicize cases in which foreign and/or Chinese journalists are illegally harassed, intimidated, and detained, and demand that the Chinese government fully investigate and prosecute individuals found guilty of such crimes.

To National Governments Sending Olympic Teams to the 2008 Beijing Olympics

  • 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 individuals 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 beyond the October 17, 2008 deadline for the expiry of the temporary regulations for foreign correspondents.

To International News Organizations Planning to Cover the 2008 Beijing Olympics

  • Document and publicize cases in which accredited reporters, photographers, cameramen/camerawomen, as well as foreign and Chinese support staff from their organizations are harassed, intimidated, or detained in the course of legal reporting activities in China, and demand that the Chinese government fully investigate and prosecute any individuals 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 beyond the October 17, 2008 deadline for the expiry of the temporary regulations for foreign correspondents.