Hong Kong - Campaigners Monday unfurled a banner outside
China's de facto embassy in Hong Kong showing the Olympic rings as
handcuffs to protest against curbs on press freedom in China.
The five protestors from the groups Reporters Without Borders held
up the 15-metre banner outside the Beijing Liaison Office in Hong
Kong.
The protest, marking Human Rights Day, was in response to the
continued detention of journalists in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing
Olympics despite promises by China to improve press freedoms.
'We have a duty to draw attention to the disastrous situation for
free speech in China,' Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.
'The Chinese government must take firm action before the games,
starting with the release of the hundred of so detained journalists
and cyber-dissidents.
'We are not trying to spoil a major sports event, but who will be
able to say these games have been a success when thousands of
prisoners of conscience languish in Chinese jails overshadowed by
these sports stadiums?'
In August, four Reporters Without Borders activists were arrested
after holding an unauthorized news conference outside the building of
the Olympic Games Organizing Committee in Beijing.
The pressure group, which describes China as 'the world's biggest
prison for journalists,' originally planned to unfurl its banner in
Beijing but switched the protest to Hong Kong when its members were
refuse visas to enter China.
The group estimates that there are currently 33 journalists and 49
internet users detained, and about 100 currently serving prison terms
for subversion or giving out state secrets.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, reverted to Chinese
sovereignty in 1997 but has a mini-constitution that guarantees
freedoms denied to people in other parts of China.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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