Chinese Government is lessening pedals on foreign journalists, after the third week of calls for protests to show unity with the “Jasmine Revolutions” in the Middle East. However there wasn’t noticeable demonstration last week, but the foreign journalists at the scene were stressed.
Stiff security in Beijing is a normal characteristic of the annual legislative session of the National People’s Congress.
The circumstances this year has became more complex by online calls for Chinese citizens to protest pn discrimination in country and to show unity with the so-called "Jasmine Revolutions" across-the-board in the Middle East.
Sunday was the third consecutive week that unidentified organizers called for Chinese to come out to designated demonstration sites in cities across the china. Despite of that there wasn’t any reports of any major incidents.
Last week, Chinese security personals and foreign journalists outnumbered obvious protesters at the designated Beijing site, Wangfujing Street. There was no clear protest, yet unidentified men beat or physically abused foreign journalists at the scene.
This Sunday, Chinese authorities tried to prevent a repeat of those incidents by persuading foreign journalists not to go there. Many reporters were warned they would be expelled from the country if they were caught breaking the law.
The Beijing city government called a news conference Sunday afternoon, at exactly the same time as the would-be demonstration.
Beijing officials echoed central government authorities, in denying that there are changes to formal State Council rules governing journalist activities.
But Li Honghai, with the Beijing Foreign Affairs office, said a booklet distributed at the briefing shows how the city’s laws, in his words, "build on" the State Council’s laws.
Li says Beijing’s policy is that foreign correspondents who want to do reporting in downtown Beijing need to first apply to city authorities for permission.
Authorities did not grant permission to any foreign news organization for any reporting from Wangfujing this Sunday.
Beijing’s spokeswoman, Wang Hui, says stability is the paramount concern. She also responded to questions about the beating of an American journalist last Sunday.
Wang says the incident was reported to the police, who are treating the issue with what she described as "full seriousness" and are conducting an investigation.
At the same time, she did not address a question about how this kind of violence could have happened in broad daylight, in a public place in downtown Beijing, with so many policemen around.
