'Sensitive' websites to be blocked during Olympics
Updated
![Journalists in Beijing have been told they will not have complete access to the internet during the Olympic Games. [AFP]](http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/img/news/gallery/china_internet_afp_300708.jpg "Journalists in Beijing have been told they will not have complete access to the internet during the Olympic Games. [AFP]")
Journalists in Beijing have been told they will not have complete access to the internet during the Olympic Games. [AFP]
A senior official from the International Olympic Committee, Kevan Gosper, has apologised to the world's media for misleading them about internet access in China.
The IOC now says it knew all along that Beijing never planned to unblock internet restrictions for journalists covering the Games.
The ABC's reporter in Beijing, Karen Barlow, says China's practice of Internet censorship is continuing during the Olympic period under the basis that the websites blocked are not Games related.
The position allows the banning of websites for human rights groups, foreign media and the Falun Gong movement.
It breaks a series of promises made by the IOC and the Chinese Olympic organisers.
It is now understood that IOC officials had been repeatedly told by Chinese authorities that the internet would not be completely free during the Games.
The head of the IOC press commission Kevan Gosper has apologised to the media, and says he's disappointed at the decision.
"BOCOG has advised us that there are certain sites that they are blocking which are non-related to the Olympic Games," he told reporters.
"Our pre-occupation is to ensure that the international media can report on the Olympic Games, and anything beyond that is a matter for the Chinese authorities."
The blocked sites in the main Olympic press centre include those of Amnesty International, the Tibet government-in-exile, dissident groups, and ones giving information about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in which the Chinese military crushed democracy protests.
Journalists barred from visiting Chinese Muslim village
Chinese authorities have barred a group of journalists from the newsagency AFP from visiting a village whose mosque was destroyed allegedly due to their lack of Olympic support.
Two AFP reporters were stopped by police from visiting Shangkumuli village in predominantly Muslim far north-western China.
Muslim Uighur groups say the village mosque was razed to the ground by Chinese authorities in May, when locals failed to display government propaganda about the Olympics.
The Chinese foreign ministry and the regional government have refused to comment on the incident.
