China Tracking Foreign Journalists

As unrest spreads in the Middle East, China has taken preemptive measures to prevent its own unrest by tracking foreign journalists. According to the New York Times, a dozen European and Japanese journalists were held in an underground bunker on Sunday for two hours. Those journalists were working to cover the possibility of a walking protest that a Chinese website called for citizens to participate in, similar to the start of protests in Egypt. In Beijing, police officers visited the homes of multiple journalists, warning them not to attempt to try and topple the party. The government's strong hold on the internet resources of China's people has helped prevent protests in China's largest cities. China's crackdown on foreign journalism is a departure from the 2008 Olympic games' relaxation of the rules to allow foreign journalists to cover the event. Today instead of free journalistic reporting, several journalists from multiple papers have been interrogated, asked to sign documents promising they will not report on the Jasmine Revolution, and had their email accounts hacked. Chinese anxiety was on display for a planned protest, as Chinese security smothered the place where people were urged to meet. These measures reveal how seriously the Chinese government fears being toppled like the Libyans, Egyptians, and Tunisians.

by Margaret Nunne