Munich: On 14 June 2007, in an exclusive interview with Inside Sport, IOC President Jacques Rogge said that any attempt to boycott the Beijing Olympic Games would be unwise and damage its own cause. “On the contrary”, he said, “the Games will open up China”, adding that “The country will be under the scrutiny of 25,000 media representatives. This is already a first advancement and there are many others. You will see Chinese society change.”

Recently, the Chinese government issued new rules on freedom of the press ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games that are set out in the “Service Guide for Foreign Media” and published on the website of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, http://en.beijing2008.cn. It is said in the document that foreign reporters are allowed to cover the Olympics and its preparation, as well as “political, economic, social and cultural matters of China.” However, the guide does not grant comparable freedom to Chinese journalists; still worse, it shall cease to be effective in October 2008, once the Beijing Games is over. The guide seems to permit the exercise of press freedom during the Games but it is inherently misguiding and discriminatory in nature. The intentional exclusion of Chinese journalists from enjoying the same freedoms is doubly worrying, for not only does it call the sincerity of the Chinese government in improving freedom of expression into doubt, it also has the potential to transform the Olympic idea of “peace, friendship and solidarity” into a mere sham. Moreover, this exclusion casts shadow over China’s promise to grant freedom of the press to “25000 media representatives” who are expected to put China “under scrutiny,” as Mr. Jacques Rogge confidently asserts. In this light, the promise made in the guide gives rise to the suspicion that freedom of the press will remain under the control of the Chinese government before, during and after the Games. Now, it goes without saying that the rules serve only as a symbolic gesture to answer to international pressure and as a strategic tool to deviate the attention of the world community from China’s worst human rights records.

According to Human Rights Watch, several foreign journalists have been warned by the Chinese government not to get access to certain areas and to cover certain subjects. In at least four other instances this year, foreign correspondents have been denied access to certain “politically sensitive” areas, including villages of HIV-AIDS sufferers in Henan province and along China’s border with North Korea. China has intensified its crackdown in Tibet after a visit by two western journalists, a rights organization has charged. Upon their return to Beijing, they were summoned by the Chinese foreign ministry and their reporting criticized as “false” and “unacceptable.” How will China’s pervasive censorship and control of both domestic and international media and the Internet play out when “25000 media representatives” who try to penetrate into the dark corners of China beyond the reach of the light of the glorious Olympic torch descend on Beijing? On which basis we may put our belief that China will allow international journalists to cover the sad and tragic stories of politically marginalized and systematically persecuted people like Uyghur and Tibetan political dissidents, human rights activists, Falun Gong practitioners, and cyber-dissidents who are considered by the Chinese government as a persistent threat to the security of the state? Will China, which has already put a limit on the rights of domestic journalists to freedom of expression during the Games, permit political dissidents to speak out for truth, to exercise their freedom of expression and to reveal systematic violations of human rights?

Despite all its promises during its 2008 Olympics candidacy, the Beijing regime continues to grossly violate human rights of the people of mainland China, including religious persecution, mass arrests, arbitrary detention and imprisonment, unfair trials, torture and arbitrary and summary executions, etc. No substantial progress in human rights situation of both individuals and ethno-religious groups in China has ever been made so far.

On the occasion of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the World Uyghur Congress expresses its deepest concern for ongoing human rights violations in East Turkistan. It opposes to the intention of the Chinese government to use the Olympic Games as an international forum to make its “political and economic achievements” more visible and to the P.R.C’s ongoing crackdowns on the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression. It urges the Chinese government without any further delay to abandon all kinds of travel restrictions on foreign journalists in East Turkistan and to allow them to cover political, economic, social and cultural matters of East Turkistan. In the meantime, it urges Chinese authorities to release, without any preconditions, all political prisoners in East Turkistan who are falsely accused of “secessionists,” “terrorists,” and “religious extremists.”