14 DAY TRIAL // Technologies that enable people to stay in touch with major sports events, as the Olympic Games are, have been available for decades. This year's situation - with the Olympics taking place in a communist country, implies certain special measures to ensure the liberty of speech is not infringed upon.
Although China has guaranteed that, during the competition, journalists from and outside of China would have the freedom to write whatever they deem suitable, things are not happening as planned. Amnesty International, the movement that supports human rights, reports that its webpage is not available to some of the foreign journalists in Beijing.
Other websites, belonging to the Taiwanese Liberty Times and to the Chinese versions of BBC and Deutsche Welle, have also been restricted. It seems that, as the Olympic Games are drawing near, the Chinese authorities are doing exactly the opposite of what they promised to do. In order to keep up appearances, Chinese officials have also blocked access to some websites that reported on HIV/AIDS issues.
As it is already common knowledge, one of the most characteristic traits of communist countries is that they always strive to keep up auspicious appearances. It is virtually impossible for a country not to be dealing with some of the problems that other nations also have, such as is the case with AIDS. When the mass media reports on nothing that could have a negative impact on people's morale, it becomes clear that the country in question is a hotspot for censorship.
"We welcome the IOC's [International Olympic Committee] recognition of its role on human rights, but given the current reality, we are surprised at their confidence that foreign media will be able to report freely and that there will be no internet censorship," said Roseann Rife, deputy director of Amnesty International Asia. "And they must speak out when the authorities violate the wider Olympic principles."
As a matter of fact, as Reuters reports, the IOC has decided to take some measures in order to unblock traffic to the aforementioned websites and to keep a sharp lookout for the further actions of Chinese authorities.