re_fuse

Fusillade for foreign 'nitpicking'

BEIJING Olympic vice-president Wang Wei yesterday fired a fierce broadside at the foreign media.
He said China did not make any promises when it won the Olympic Games in 2001 and the global press was nitpicking.
In a fiery press conference, Wang, who was the Beijing Olympic bid executive seven years ago, angrily defended his country's hosting of the Games and the broader reforms the country had introduced.
Wang's outburst came after International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies refused to answer a question put to her five times by a persistent English journalist.
Davies was asked, "Had China's human rights and the press freedoms issues, where they had repeatedly lied through their teeth, embarrassed the IOC?"
Her non-answer to the question, deflecting to how the athletes were happy, was telling.
Wang took the microphone and said: "During the bid I was secretary-general and I was confronted by many questions about the opening up and reform of China. I always said the Games will help China open up and reform faster.
"We welcome the people and the colleagues of the Olympic Games with us and we welcome suggestions that are constructive advice from these people, all kinds of peoples. But the foreign press, you come here to pick, critically dig into details, but that doesn't mean we don't fulfil on our promises. I did not say China would promise to do whatever; I did say the Games would open up the horizons of China."
In 2001 The Age was in Moscow and quoted Wang saying on the eve of the vote: "We are confident that the Games coming to China will not only promote our economy but also enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights. We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China."
On Wednesday night journalists were prevented from asking Georgian judo gold medallist Irakli Tsirekidze about his thoughts for countrymen back home while his country was involved in intense military conflict with Russia.
The judo press venue chief, Felicity Byrnes, said she was instructed by Beijing organisers to allow questions only that related specifically to sport. Wang said that obstruction was in line with the Olympic charter because if there were questions about the Russia-Georgia issue "it would start another debate about the Olympic spirit here".
Wang also excused the arrest and assault of a British journalist trying to cover a Tibet protest as a failure of communications and reneged on providing promised details of how the three official Olympic protest parks were operating.
He denied the protest parks were the Beijing Organising Committee's responsibility and brushed off the detention of ITV reporter John Ray, who was bundled into a police van and taken from a park near the Olympic Green as he was covering a Tibet protest by five Western tourists who had chained themselves to the park entrance.
He and Davies also said they were unaware that a Guardian photographer had also been assaulted and had his camera broken. Footage of both incidents is available on the internet, contradicting the IOC's assurances that they would hold BOCOG to its pledge of media freedom.
"According to my information, when the British journalist showed his accreditation he was released," Wang said, contradicting footage of the detention that clearly showed Ray identifying himself in vain as a journalist.
Yesterday there was no reporting in Chinese English-language newspapers, nor in Chinese, of the bus and van collision that killed two Chinese nationals and involved two Croatian rowers, coaches from Croatia, Canada and Poland and an Australian doctor.
Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said of the blackout: "Maybe things are done differently here."