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Handbook for Journalists New to Beijing

*** Media Advisory ***
Human Rights Watch
June 27, 2008

(New York, June 27, 2008) — Human Rights
Watch is publishing a pocket guide for
reporters planning to travel to China to
cover the Beijing Olympics. Produced with
the support of the Committee to Protect
Journalists, the Reporters’ Guide to
Covering the Beijing Olympics addresses
how to report in a largely closed country,
with particular attention to the hazards
facing Chinese sources and news assistants.

An estimated 25,000 foreign journalists will
cover the Beijing Games. This guide spells
out both their rights – in particular under
the Chinese government’s temporary
regulations for foreign journalists –
and the risks they or their Chinese contacts
may face. The Reporters’ Guide is also
downloadable online at no cost at
http://china.hrw.org/, and will also soon be
available in French, German, Spanish, and
Japanese.

“Many of the journalists heading to Beijing
are veteran sports and Olympics reporters,
but the environment in China poses unique
challenges,” said Minky Worden, media
director at Human Rights Watch and editor
of China’s Great Leap
(http://china.hrw.org/chinas_great_leap), a
new collection of essays on China and the
Olympics. “Journalists will encounter
extensive government surveillance,
internet censorship, and serious risks to
Chinese fixers and sources.”

The promise of human rights
improvements was a central plank of
Beijing’s successful bid to host the 2008
Olympics, after its failure to win the 2000
Summer Games. The Chinese government
pledged full press freedom to journalists
planning to cover the Games. “We will give
the media complete freedom to report
when they come to China,” said Wang Wei,
vice president of the Beijing Olympics
organizing committee, in 2001.

Yet China remains the world’s leading jailer
of journalists, censors the internet, and
retaliates against Chinese citizens thought
to be sources for stories critical of the
government.
Designed as a “survival guide” for
reporters new to China, the handbook
covers:

* Risks and Rights: an overview of both the
risks faced by reporters and their rights, in
particular under the temporary regulations
for foreign journalists;

* Outside the Arena: important but
sensitive human rights topics and the
Chinese government’s legal tools to
prevent and punish such coverage;

* Security, Surveillance and Safety: tips on
countering censorship, and dealing with
the police in problematic situations;

* Protecting Your Chinese Contacts: how
not to endanger sources and news
assistants;

* The Great Firewall: internet censorship
and tips to counter it; and,

* Practical Information: an appendix listing
useful numbers and websites as well as a
bilingual (English/Chinese) version of the
temporary regulations (which can be
shown, for example, to officials questioning
a reporter in the field).
Human Rights Watch is releasing the
Reporters’ Guide six months to the day
after the December 27, 2007, detention of
human rights advocate Hu Jia, who was
sentenced on April 3 to three and a half
years in prison for “inciting subversion of
state power.” The charges were based on
five articles Hu wrote and two interviews
he gave to foreign media, in part on
human rights abuses in China in the
context of the Beijing Games.
“We hope that reporters headed to Beijing
will do their best to tell the complex story
of life in China today, including the
important human stories beyond the
sports arenas,” said Worden. “The key to
covering China effectively without
jeopardizing your staff, your sources, and
yourself, is to be prepared and informed.
We hope this guide will help.”

For more information, please contact:

In Washington, DC, Sophie Richardson,
Human Rights Watch (English, Mandarin):
+1-202-612-4341; or +1-917-721-7473
(mobile)

In New York, Minky Worden, Human Rights
Watch (English, Cantonese): +1-212-216-
1250; or +1-917-497-0540 (mobile)

In New York, Bob Dietz, Committee to
Protect Journalists (English): +1-202-465-1004