BEIJING — The beating of two Japanese journalists by police in western China drew an official apology Tuesday, but Beijing also set new obstacles for news outlets wanting to report from Tiananmen Square in the latest sign of trouble for reporters covering the Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee, which last week only partially succeeded in getting China to unblock some Internet sites after journalists raised a furor, said it would look into the new rules that require reporters to make appointments to do reports at Tiananmen.
The Japanese government and the Foreign Correspondents Club of China condemned the roughing up of the Japanese newsmen who were covering an attack by alleged Muslim separatists on police in Xinjiang province.
The separate incidents added to the impression that China is not living up to promises that foreign media would have unrestricted access during the games and has reverted to the tight controls that the communist government keeps over the press in normal times.
In the latest restriction, the Beijing city government said on its Web site that Chinese and foreign journalists who want to report and film in Tiananmen “are advised to make advanced appointments by phone.” It said that will help ensure orderly newsgathering amid what are expected to be large crowds in the square on each day of the games, which start Friday.
The notice did not specify when the rule takes effect, nor did it say what would happen to news crews if they tried to report from the square without an appointment. Phone calls Tuesday night to the Beijing government spokesman’s office seeking clarification rang unanswered.
IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the new arrangement did not match the committee’s understanding of access to Tiananmen and promised to look into the situation.
“It wouldn’t be how we understand the operation functioning. No doubt we can clear up the matter quickly,” Davies said.
Surrounded by Beijing’s top landmarks, the square is iconic for its symbolism as the seat of the communist government. But the expanse was also the focus of pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 that were violently crushed by security forces, and officials keep a close watch on it.
A television executive said access to Tiananmen remains an issue even for TV companies that have paid tens of millions of dollars or more for the rights to broadcast the games.
Construction was not finished on a platform for broadcasters to use at the square only three days before opening day and already scheduled live broadcasts were being canceled due to the delay, said the executive, who agreed to discuss the situation only if not quoted by name to avoid offending officials during negotiations over the snag.
Friction between Chinese officials and journalists deepened Tuesday after police detained and roughed up the two Japanese journalists who were sent to cover Monday’s suspected terrorist attack on police in the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.
Foreign affairs officials in the region said police had apologized to the pair and would pay for damage to their equipment and for medical checkups.
Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corp., said he and Shinzou Kawakita, a photographer from the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, were grabbed by police late Monday and held for about two hours at a security facility.
“My face was pushed into the ground, my arm was twisted and I was hit two or three times in the face,” Katsuta said in a telephone interview broadcast by his station.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China said Kawakita had described being surrounded by paramilitary police, lifted off the floor by his arms and legs, kicked and then pinned to the floor by an officer’s boot on his face.
“This is utterly unacceptable any time. It’s particularly reprehensible just days before the Olympics at a time when China has promised complete media freedom,” said Jonathan Watts, the foreign correspondent club’s chairman and a correspondent for the Guardian newspaper in Britain.
Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, Nobutaka Machimura, told reporters in Tokyo that the government planned to “lodge a strong protest” with China over the incident.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said the incident runs counter to China’s promise to let reporters work freely before and during the Olympics. He urged China to “fulfill its Olympic bid commitments to increase access to information and expand freedom of the press.”
Liu Yaohua, Xinjiang’s top police official, told reporters Tuesday that the Japanese journalists had tried to enter a restricted area, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said.
“The Japanese reporters violated the rules of China by forcing their way into a military area. The act was not well-justified, and they should accept the consequences,” Liu was quoted as saying. “I, however, apologize to the reporters, as the top regional public security official, for the clash they had with the border policemen.”
Cheek’s visa revoked
Former Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek had his visa revoked by Chinese authorities Wednesday, hours before he was set to travel to Beijing to urge the Chinese government to help make peace in the war-torn Darfur section of Sudan.
Cheek, the president and co-founder of a collection of Olympic athletes known as Team Darfur, was planning to spend about two weeks in China, when he received an unexpected call from authorities.
He said they told him they didn’t have to have a reason to deny him entrance into the country.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Cheek said. “I figured once they gave me a visa, I wouldn’t imagine the wouldn’t allow me to come in later. That was a big shock. I wasn’t expecting to get a call the evening before I was leaving for Beijing.”
One of Cheek’s key initiatives was urging the international community to persuade Sudan to observe the ancient tradition of the Olympic truce during the Beijing Games.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in fighting in the western Sudanese region since ethnic African tribesmen took up arms in 2003.
The Olympic truce dates to the ancient games in Greece, when fighting was halted to ensure athletes had safe passage to travel to and from the competitions. Attempts to revive the truce in modern times have met with only modest success, most notably in the Balkans during the 1992 and 1994 Games.
Cheek said he has been upset by China’s treatment of athletes involved in his cause and thinks the Interntional Olympic Committee’s rules that prohibit political protest go against the spirit of the games.
“I’ve been pretty unimpressed with the IOC’s efforts in protecting athletes, for giving them any options,” Cheek said.
He said he has been greeted warmly on his previous trips to China.
“I don’t begrudge them the Olympics, I think they’ll do well with them,” Cheek said. “But there are so many of their government’s policies that I find repulsive, especially for athletes who have no intention but to help someone else.”
Torch is on final leg
BEIJING — The Olympic flame approached the final destination of its long and sometimes contentious global tour Wednesday, greeted by rapturous crowds in the Chinese capital two days before it officially launches the Summer Games.
The arrival of the torch marks one of the final steps in China’s seven years of preparations for the games that have cost billions of dollars, and one which Beijing hopes will serve as the country’s symbolic debut as a modern world power.
The torch will tour Beijing before ending up at Friday’s opening ceremony for the games. It will be carried by a diverse group, including China’s first astronaut in space Yang Liwei, movie director Zhang Yimou and basketball superstar Yao Ming.
“I’m very happy to be here,” said Yang before the relay kicked off from the Forbidden City, home of Chinese emperors since the 15th century.
“That the torch is finally in Beijing is a realization of a dream we’ve had for a hundred years,” Yang said, minutes before he took up the flame as its first torchbearer.
Overseas, the torch relay was disrupted by protests or conducted under extremely heavy security since it left Greece on March 24, turning an event that should have built up excitement for the games into something of a public relations disaster for the hosts.
The protests have mostly been in response to China’s crackdown in March on anti-government riots in Tibet and to more general concerns over human rights issues in China.
The torch arrived back in the capital late Tuesday, after an emotional run in Sichuan province, the site of China’s deadly May 12 earthquake which killed almost 70,000 people and left some 5 million homeless.
It was paraded Tuesday through about eight miles of the provincial capital of Chengdu. Hours later, a powerful aftershock struck other parts of Sichuan province in western China and nearby provinces, but it was not felt in Chengdu.
The original route of the torch in Chengdu was altered, taking it through an industrial part of the city rather than a more historic section that houses Tibetan communities, apparently out of concern that anti-government protests could mar the ceremony. Deadly riots against the Beijing government broke out in the capital of neighboring Tibet in March, and pro-Tibet activists have disrupted the torch relay overseas.
A huge stage was set up at the Forbidden City’s Meridian Gate for lion dancers and other traditional dance performances. Despite the muggy heat, thousands of people lined Chang An Avenue, which runs through the heart of Beijing, to cheer on the torchbearers.
“I’m just so happy I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Liu Yuzhen, a 54-year-old retiree who was one of the dancers. “It’s our torch and it’s in Beijing. It’s a chance of a hundred years and it’s finally here.”
From the Forbidden City, the torch was to pass landmarks such as the futuristic egg-shaped National Center for the Performing Arts and Tiananmen Square. The expansive square is iconic for its symbolism as the seat of the communist government, but also was the focus of pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 that were violently crushed by security forces.
The torch will end the day’s relay at the Temple of Heaven in south Beijing, where the emperor went to perform sacrifices for a good harvest. The Beijing leg will involve 841 torchbearers over three days and will also visit the Great Wall at Badaling, a site where prehistoric fossils of Peking Man were discovered.
Security was tight along the torch run and Tiananmen Square was secured by armed police officers. The only people allowed onto the square were media and special guests.
Organizers have been on heightened alert since an attack in the country’s restive Muslim region in the west killed 16 policemen on Monday.
On Tuesday, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said the committee was discussing whether to eliminate international relays. He said the IOC would retain its tradition of lighting the Olympic flame in Ancient Olympia and starting the torch relay in Greece, but may limit flame processions to domestic routes within Olympic host countries.
Rogge’s anti-doping call
IOC president Jacques Rogge renewed his call Wednesday for governments and sports bodies to speed up implementation of global rules on fighting the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
So far, 87 countries have ratified a UNESCO convention that binds governments to uphold the World Anti-Doping Agency code setting out international drug-testing rules and sanctions — far short of the target of more than 190 signatories.
Sports federations and national Olympic committees must be in full compliance with the code by November, or else face the risk of being excluded from future Olympic Games.
“I call upon the national Olympic committees and international federations to be sure that we meet the deadline of compliance,” Rogge said on the second day of the IOC’s three-day general assembly on the eve of the Beijing Games. “I make an appeal to governments to accelerate the ratification of the UNESCO treaty.”
The UNESCO Convention on Doping in Sport was adopted in Paris in 2005 and came into force early last year, but has not been ratified by all of the nearly 200 countries that had pledged to so in 2003.
The treaty ensures that the WADA code becomes national law and commits member nations to prevent cross-border trafficking of doping substances, support a national drug-testing program and withhold funding from athletes caught cheating.
President Bush ratified the treaty in Washington on Monday before leaving on his trip to Asia and the Beijing Games. His signature followed Senate approval of the convention.
“The timing of the United States’ ratification, on the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games, is appropriate,” Bush said in a statement. “The Convention makes clear that the use of performance enhancing drugs to gain a competitive advantage undercuts the positive attributes of sport.”
WADA president John Fahey said Cuba and Belgium were also on the verge of completing ratification.
“You have reassured me,” said Rogge, who is from Belgium. “I felt a little bit embarrassed talking about doping when my country had not signed.”
The 28 summer Olympic sports federations accepted the anti-doping code before the 2004 Athens Games, but not all have fully complied with the rules. WADA hasn’t identified which sports fall short, giving them until November to come into line. Compliance is required for inclusion at the Olympics.
“We are confident we will reach compliance,” Fahey said. “WADA will give every assistance for all stakeholders to be compliant by November.”
The IOC formally accepted the revised WADA code by a show of hands. The document was passed at a global doping summit in Madrid, Spain, last November and will come into force on Jan. 1.
Fahey said WADA delegates will act as independent observers during the Beijing Games, which will feature a record 4,500 drug tests, including blood screenings and controls for EPO and human growth hormone. Dozens of athletes around the world have been dropped from Olympic teams after failing recent pre-games tests in their home countries.
“The real onus is on the countries and sports federations to ensure that the athletes who have been sent to Beijing are clean,” Fahey said. “WADA, the IOC and BOCOG (Beijing’s organizing committee) cannot guarantee that all athletes at the games will not try to dope.
“We can be sure, however, that anybody who dopes risks getting caught as the testing will be more frequent and significant than at any other Olympic Games.”
Dominican to pay medalists
The Dominican Republic says it will pay its athletes who win gold, silver or bronze medals at the Olympic Games in Beijing.
Sports Minister Felipe Payano said Tuesday in Santo Domingo, D.R., that the awards will range from nearly US$90,000 up to US$200,000. Winners could also get a car. It is the first time the Dominican government has made such an offer.
Payano said trainers and sports officials who work with the 25 athletes going to the games could also be rewarded. They will receive a bonus of nearly US$30,000 for each gold medal won.
The Caribbean country has won only two medals in Olympic history, a gold in athletics in 2004 and a boxing bronze in 1984.
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