The International Olympic Committee will look into the censorship of the Internet that the media is using to cover the Beijing Olympics.
China has pledged to the media that there would be no censorship of the Internet during the Games and rolled back regulations in January that put restrictions on the foreign press.
Even with the more lenient media regulations, foreign journalists in China have expressed concern about ongoing harassment by officials and a Humans Rights Watch report says China is not following through on its promises.
Press commission chairman Kevan Gosper said the IOC would investigate anything that interfered with journalists covering the Olympic Games.
“All of these things are a concern and we’ll investigate them but our preoccupation is that the media are able to report on the Games as they did in previous Games,” he told Reuters.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said the press would be able to access the Internet but said some Chinese religious sites would be blocked.
He indicated that problems accessing some Web sites could be blamed on the sites themselves. Liu said some Web sites are difficult to view in China. “Our attitude is to ensure that foreign journalists have regular access to information in China during the Olympic Games.”
Gosper said that although China is a country that does have censorship within its media that foreign journalists have been guaranteed open access for reporting on the Games. He also said there had been complaints of slow Internet service and that the IOC was investigating.
