BEIJING — China’s capital further tightened restrictions on reporting by foreign journalists Sunday, the latest sign of the government’s determination to prevent the formation of a Middle East-style protest movement.
The requirement to obtain government permission before any newsgathering in the city center is the latest sign of official jitters sparked by Internet calls for popular protests each Sunday similar to those that have toppled authoritarian leaders in Egypt and Tunisia and continue to roil North Africa and the Middle East.
Despite three decades of economic liberalization and the withdrawal of Communist control over many parts of China’s increasingly prosperous and diverse society, the one-party state brooks no challenge to its rule and routinely harasses and imprisons its critics.
On the third Sunday since the anonymous Internet postings first appeared, no apparent demonstrations occurred in Beijing or Shanghai, though the designated sites drew onlookers and heavy security. In Shanghai, police detained at least 17 foreign reporters for showing up at the protest site, People’s Square, because they did not have prior permission to be there.
At a hastily called news conference in Beijing, Li Honghai, vice director of the city’s Foreign Affairs Office, said reporters must apply for and receive government permission to conduct any newsgathering within the city center.
Li’s announcement, which he described as a new interpretation of existing rules, makes explicit restrictions that police began imposing more than a week ago following online postings for Sunday protests at designated spots in Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities. In the past week, police have followed foreign reporters in Beijing, and in some cases stopped foreign TV news crews from filming even unrelated stories because they lacked permission.
The requirement for permission — delivered only verbally and not in writing — shows how nervous China’s leaders are about the calls for protests and how determined they are to prevent them spreading via the international media, text messaging, and social networking sites as they did in the Middle East. China already blocks Facebook and Twitter and heavily monitors their Chinese equivalents for any content deemed subversive.
Beijing officials used the news conference to denounce the Internet appeals as an attempt to undermine China’s stability.
Requiring permission marks a rollback of more relaxed regulations governing foreign reporters that were first instituted for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and then made permanent. Those rules dropped an earlier requirement of official permission to report, and instead said reporters only needed the consent of the “work unit” or person they wanted to interview.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
