The Beijing 2008 Olympics Games are going to be censorship free, with the news that the Chinese authorities have finally agreed to allow journalists attending the Games unfettered Internet access. 253 million Chinese people aren’t so lucky.

The Great Firewall of China, or the Golden Shield Project, to give it its full and official title, is a system blocking people within the People’s Republic Of China from accessing websites deigned inappropriate by the Chinese authorities.

It has been in existence in some form or another since 1998, and now stands between the estimated 256 million Chinese Internet users and websites such as the BBC, Wikipedia, and countless others that those of us living in uncensored countries have to live by.

When China was awarded the 2008 Olympics Games, to be held in Beijing from August 8th, the authorities insisted that Internet access would be uncensored at the Olympic Village press centre for the duration of the Games. With just a week to go to the start of the Olympics, journalists started arriving in Beijing only to find that this wasn’t the case. Internet connections were ultra slow, and ever when they were working properly, many international websites remained blocked.

The IOC (International Olympic Committee) promised to look in to the problem, and ended up accepting a kind of middle way with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games (BOCOG). This meant that certain websites would continue to be blocked to journalists.

After heavy criticism from world-weary journalists, the IOC went back to the negotiating table, and Ars Technica reports that BOCOG has now agreed to provide completely unfettered Internet access to all those in the Olympic Village press centre.

While this is great news for democracy and freedom of speech, it should be remembered that this only applies to a select band of journalists present in one Chinese city for a limited period. The Great Firewall of China continues to block a quarter of a billion people from having the freedom to visit whatever website they choose to on the Internet.

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Entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 8:10 pm under Internet, Opinion.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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