PARIS (AP):SECRET POLICE tails. Reprimands or perhaps even expulsion for writing about topics sensitive for the Chinese Communist Party. Big Brother propaganda apparatchiks working overtime to stifle negative news.
These were some of the grim scenarios painted on Friday at a Paris conference by press freedom groups about working conditions that foreign reporters might face at the Beijing Olympics this August.
China's viewpoint wasn't heard: the two-day meeting's organisers said Beijing Games officials, the International Olympic Committee IOC), leading sports manufacturers and NBC, which holds the US rights to broadcast the Olympics, declined or did not respond to invitations.
No guarantees
China insists it will keep promises made in Beijing's winning bid in 2001 that reporters will be allowed to cover the Games as they did previous ones. But Chinese officials stop short of explicitly guaranteeing unres-tricted reporting.
"We welcome media from all around the world to come to Beijing and report about the Olympics. We'll follow the practice of the Olympic Games, keep our bidding promise and provide convenient support to reporters covering the Games," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said this week. "In the meantime, I hope they will be objective and balanced in reporting, and show their professional ethics and quality in their work."
In the wake of violent anti-government protests in Tibet and across western China last month, China has detained journalists and banned them from parts of the country.
Speakers at the conference agreed that reporters who limit themselves to covering sports in Beijing will likely be fine.
"If you've not been to China before, you are going to be wowed by the modernisation," said Merle Goldman of Harvard University, author of the book From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China.
She also said, however, that China's government "is frightened by its own people" and warned of virulent nationalism bubbling among younger Chinese.
Warning threats
Western reporters in China have recently received aggressive phone calls, emails and text messages, some with death threats, supposedly from ordinary Chinese complaining about alleged bias in coverage of the Tibetan protests.
The harassment has targeted foreign television broadcasters - CNN in particular - and broadened after mobile phone numbers and other information for reporters from The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today were posted on several websites in China.
Chinese journalist Gao Yu, imprisoned for nearly six years in the 1990s on charges of leaking state secrets, said that foreign reporters should expect police surveillance because it "is just run of the mill".
Flame burns brightly in Thailand
AP
The Olympic torch is carried by Thai businessman Banthoon Lamsam during its run in Bangkok, Thailand, yesterday.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP):
THAILAND'S LEG of the Olympic torch run got off to a peaceful start yesterday with thousands of spectators gathered in Bangkok's Chinatown to deliver a flag-waving welcome to the flame.
From a stage near a large red Chinese-style gate, Thai dignitaries and the Chinese ambassador delivered speeches praising their countries' friendship as athletes stood by holding the torch.
Thai authorities had beefed up security in Bangkok's historic centre with 2,000 police and barricades to protect the Olympic torch from potential protests along its 6.3-mile route.
Protests over China's crackdown on recent Tibetan demonstrations have dogged the torch relay on its worldwide journey.
A sole dissenter could be seen at the launch site, a Western woman carrying a picture of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader. Some members of the crowd shouted at her to "Get out", but no violence was evident.
After the torch was lit, it passed through the hands of several VIPs until Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin gave it to one of his subordinates, Anant Siripasraporn, who began the run through the streets of the capital. Many members of the crowd followed on foot.
Peaceful protest
"We are especially concerned about small alleyways from where protesters might emerge as the torch arrives," said Gen. Yuttasak Sasiprapha, president of the National Olympic Committee of Thailand.
A coalition of human rights and other activist groups in Thailand said they would hold a peaceful protest outside the UN's Asian headquarters, which is along the planned relay route in Bangkok.
"We want to show the Chinese government that the crackdown in Tibet did not spark outrage only in the Western world," said Pokpong Lawansiri, coordinator of the Free Tibet Movement.
Authorities earlier warned that foreign activists who try to disrupt the event would be deported.
"Supporters of the Tibetan cause have the right to express their views but not to thwart the relay. We will not tolerate that," Yuttasak said.
The torch was scheduled to leave for Malaysia last night.
