A Bad Omen
Death threats against foreign reporters, government condemnation of international media, increasing political pressure on Chinese sources: This is not the free, open reporting climate the Chinese government promised for the 2008 Olympics.
Yet it is reality in the months leading up to the Summer Games in August, following the March eruption of violent protests in Tibet, the subsequent world outcry over the Chinese government’s treatment of Tibetans and the ensuing public relations fiasco that was the global Olympic torch relay. As international criticism of China for human rights abuses grows louder, nationalists and government officials have singled out outsiders for scorn, blaming them for inciting the world’s displeasure with China. Joining the French on the hot seat of derision are the international media.
Early in April, after returning from a government-chaperoned reporting trip to the aftermath of demonstrations in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, Associated Press Beijing Bureau Chief Charles Hutzler started getting harassing calls on his mobile phone. For five or six days, 20 to 30 calls rolled in every hour (except during lunch and dinner and late at night), with a nearly equal number of text messages. Most passed on petty insults and patriotic curses; some threatened to kill him. Though he stopped answering his cell phone and switched to a backup line, Hutzler says the several callers he did talk to shared one thing: They hadn’t read anything he had written.
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