truth when China bans journalists and blocks the net?

chris

Journalists are doing their best to report from inside Tibet. But the Chinese authorities are doing their worst to stop them from filing copy or from transmitting film and pictures. Internet access is restricted too. But, as the Daily Telegraph's China correspondent Richard Spencer reports, some bloggers are managing to put up material on the net.

For example, EastSouthWestNorth carries video clips - though one has been taken down - plus analysis which calls into question claims by the Chinese authorities that the revolt is merely a "race riot." It also alleges that film purporting to show Tibetans attacking Chinese may in fact be examples of Chinese assaulting Tibetans (it points out that Han Chinese outnumber ethnic Tibetans in Lhasa).

There is also analysis of the Chinese internet blocking manoeuvres by Black and White Cat, and practical advice on how to act by Mutant Palm, who urges "concerned netizens" to open dialogues with Chinese contacts.

Aside from the crude blocking the Chinese are also putting out propaganda too. If you search for "Tibet" on YouTube, the first clip to appear is a seven-minute "history lesson" entitled Tibet WAS, IS,and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China. (The language is a bit ripe, but the music is rather good).

Back to Spencer's tale. Naturally enough, he had been trying to keep a low profile. He had not managed to get into the Tibet autonomous region itself, but had visited towns in the wider Tibetan area. Then came the knock on his hotel door... "Two police arrived, checked my passport, took it away and photocopied it, and said I had to get out of town next morning. They said it was for my own safety."

Hours later, on his journey, he encountered a "full-scale round-up of journalists who had been valiantly holed up in local hotels". That fits with an IFEX report about the expulsion of Hong Kong reporters from Lhasa.

The Hong Kong Journalists' Association argues that the Chinese authorities have breached the special measures adopted in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing, which allow reporters the freedom to interview people. (Of course, China didn't expect a revolt in Tibet when it agreed to relax its normal press censorship).

Spencer says the "king of the journalists" is James Miles of The Economist, who is the only western correspondent in Lhasa: "right reporter, right place, wrong news organisation, given that its weekly magazine's first report of what has been happening since Friday won't be out till next Friday."

In fact, Miles reported from inside Tibet's capital yesterday, for The Times. It was a riveting eye-witness account of the rubble-strewn, silent city.

But what is the truth? What has happened in Tibet? Who attacked who, and why? Spencer poses those kinds of questions, rightly pointing out that getting at the facts is proving impossible due to the heavy-handed censorship. As he concludes: "If China wants the world to believe its story, it has to let the world see it happen in practice."

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