IOC "surprised" by Games web censorship

BEIJING (Reuters) - The media should have been told they would not have total Internet freedom before arriving for the Beijing Olympics, a senior IOC official said on Thursday, as rights groups piled criticism on both the IOC and host China.

As the row over censorship continued, International Olympic Committee (IOC) press chief Kevan Gosper told Reuters that both he and the international media had been taken by surprise that some politically sensitive websites had been blocked.

"It's learning of it at almost the last minute that I think is destabilizing the international media and certainly embarrassing for me, as up till 48 hours ago I was insisting it would be free and uncensored Internet access," Gosper said.

Gosper said the local organizers BOCOG's failure to inform media beforehand that this would not happen was not good enough.

"We've noticed that the words being used by BOCOG have changed in recent months from 'uncensored' to what is more like 'convenient and timely', or 'convenient and available'. These are quite different words," he added.

"Nevertheless, no one has come out publicly and said on behalf of BOCOG or the IOC 'sorry, but there are certain Internet websites which are blocked'," Gosper said. "I think they could have done better."

BOCOG is responsible for directly running the Beijing Games under the auspices of the IOC, which sets general policy. The organizing committee of an Olympics would generally work hand-in-hand with the IOC.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International, whose website is among those barred in China, condemned Internet restrictions during the Games as "betraying the Olympic values".

"This blatant media censorship adds one more broken promise that undermines the claim that the Games would help improve human rights in China," Amnesty East Asia researcher Mark Allison said.

Czech ex-president Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu and other campaigners urged athletes to speak up on human rights in China during the Beijing Games.

"We are concerned that the Beijing Olympics might simply become a giant spectacle to distract the attention of the international public from the violations of human and civil rights in China," stated the letter signed by 17 politicians and rights activists and issued in Prague.

BOCOG spokesman Sun Weide said censorship would not prevent journalists from reporting the Games, though he acknowledged there would be no access to some websites. BOCOG consistently assured journalists ahead of the Games that they would have normal access to the Internet.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said his government stood by Olympics reporting rules promising to ease restrictions on foreign journalists.

"Our determination to enforce these regulations is staunch," spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news conference. "As for how the International Olympic Committee understands these regulations, that's its own affair."

CEREMONY REHEARSAL

organizers also became involved in another media spat, over a South Korean television station's broadcast of a dress rehearsal for the Olympics opening ceremony, traditionally kept under wraps by Games organizers, that has infuriated Chinese Internet users.

But the network said on Thursday it had taken the footage legitimately.

The broadcast is certain to irk Games organizers who had made performers sign confidentiality agreements not to divulge details of the August 8 ceremony, directed by Oscar-nominated director Zhang Yimou.

"We went, and nobody stopped us. So we just shot," a staff reporter at the private SBS network sports desk said in Seoul.

The network, one of three official rights holders for the Games from South Korea, aired just over a minute of video of next week's ceremony rehearsal, including the unrolling of a huge scroll from which rises a carpet-like object.

SBS did not show the lighting of the Olympic torch at the National Stadium where the rehearsal was taking place, but it reported that a golden phoenix was expected to swoop down into the stadium, dubbed the Bird's Nest, for the climactic event.

Sun said he was "disappointed" by SBS's move. Chinese Internet users accused the channel of effectively breaking state secrecy laws by showing the footage.

HAZY SKIES

Worries over pollution remained too.

China has announced a slew of emergency measures in and around Beijing in case air pollution remains poor during the Olympics, including taking more cars off the roads and slashing production at more than 220 factories.

The radical plan would be carried out if air quality was forecast to be short of acceptable standards for the upcoming 48 hours due to "extremely unfavorable weather conditions", the Ministry of Environmental Protection said.

A sultry haze has shrouded Beijing for much of the last week but officials have sought to ease worries, blaming it on an unusually long bout of hot, humid weather they said was unlikely to be repeated during the Games.

The government has already cleared about half the capital's 3.3 million cars from its streets -- by restricting vehicles with odd or even license plate numbers on alternate days -- and shut factories dozens of miles away.

(Additional reporting by Beijing and Seoul bureau and Jan Lopatka in Prague; Editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)