Date: Tuesday, April 1, 2008

China Told to Allow Open Internet Access During Olympics

During one of their final meetings with Olympic organisers before this summer’s games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has told China to ensure full open access to the Internet throughout the event.

Richard Kevan Gosper, vice-chairman of the IOC, voiced his concerns that the 30,000 journalists expected to visit Beijing to cover the Olympics would not have full, open access to the internet. He said: “Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous Games during Games time.” He told the organisers that they were obliged to provide the press with open internet access during the games as part of their Olympic contract and that failing to do so would “reflect very poorly” on the country and the Games in general.

China is well-known for enforcing strict state control, particularly on internet use. The country routinely blocks access to a number of internet sites that are deemed controversial, as well as implementing a list of banned words that cause search engines to crash, ensuring that they are never found online.

The recent political unrest regarding Tibet in China caused the already-strict country to impose even tighter restrictions on internet use than usual. However, Mr Kevan Gosper has spoken of his confidence that these controls will be eased by the games. He said: “There was some criticism that the internet closed down during events relating to Tibet in previous weeks, but this is not Games time.”

So far, Mr Kevin Gosper seems to be right; China has already indicated that it is ready to loosen its strict internet controls. The country has just lifted a long-standing block on the BBC news website, although access to Wikipedia remains restricted due to its coverage of sensitive subjects and issues such as Tibet, the Dalai Lama and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Source:

BBC

The Times