The AP reports:
IOC president Jacques Rogge was accused of backtracking on promises of press freedoms Saturday and some Internet sites remained blocked less than a week before the Beijing Games begin. . .
“Let me be very clear on this,” said Rogge, speaking publicly for the first time since arriving in Beijing on Thursday. “We require that different media have the fullest access possible to report on the Olympic Games. And I’m adamant in saying there has been no deal whatsoever to accept restrictions. Our requirements are the same from host city to host city and remain unchanged since the IOC entered into a host city contract with Beijing in 2001.” . . .
“I’m not going to make an apology for something that the IOC is not responsible for,” Rogge said “We are not running the Internet in China. The Chinese authorities are running the Internet.”
Not reponsible, my ass. They knew what China was when they gave them the Olympics. Then there’s this:
During an IOC news conference earlier Saturday, Rogge was quoted as saying “foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet.”
IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies suggested that Rogge, who is Belgian, may not have been precise when he spoke of “no censorship” because he was speaking in English, not his native tongue.
I don’t think that explanation — even if we were to believe it — is very good cover. The IOC president hasn’t had occasion to learn the meaning of the world “censorship”?
(Via Instapundit.)
Plus, Olympic visitors face a major headache from Chinese spies. (Via Instapundit.) Simplest way to handle that would be not to go.
Internet Scofflaw 