China blocks YouTube, reporters over Tibet news

[raccoon]

By Peter FordTue Mar 18, 4:00 AM ET

The Chinese government's overriding priority for the past week has clearly been to quell unrest among its Tibetan citizens. But the authorities have also made exhaustive efforts to ensure that as few people as possible, inside or outside China, hear any but the official version of that unrest.

Foreign journalists have been banned from traveling to Tibet and prevented by the police from reporting on protests by Tibetans in other Chinese provinces. Domestic newspapers, TV programs, and Internet sites have carried only articles produced by the official Xinhua news agency. News reports on international TV networks such as CNN and the BBC have been blacked out by censors.

The policy marks a sharp setback for moves the Chinese government had been making recently to be more open. In particular, the way foreign reporters have been prevented from reaching the scenes of protests runs counter to regulations introduced last year that were designed to ensure free reporting, in line with a promise the Chinese made to the International Olympic Committee.

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When Beijing was bidding for the Olympics in 2001, Wang Wei, head of the Games' organizing committee, promised the international media "complete freedom to report when they come to China." The new regulations say that "to interview organizations or individuals in China, foreign journalists need only to obtain their prior consent."
"The regulations are fine when you want to interview pandas, but they don't work when you want to talk to Tibetans," scoffs one longtime foreign correspondent in Beijing.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080318/wl_csm/osilence