IOC members reportedly enraged over China internet block
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/base/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]
China's muzzling of the international media covering the Beijing games has angered the Olympic movement.
Our reporter in Beijing, Karen Barlow, says members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who have spoken to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are questioning China's right to hold the games.
No high-ranking IOC official has been available to comment publicly about the breaking of the promise of a free and open Beijing games, but privately IOC members are enraged by the blocking of sensitive websites and the use of spyware in media hotels to monitor Internet use.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an IOC member has told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation it appears now that China never had any intention of removing its censorship regime - and the international media has effectively been muzzled.
The member says if this information had been had been known during the bidding process, China never would have been awarded the games.
Earlier, the head of the IOC press commission, Kevan Gosper, apologised to the media, saying he was disappointed in the decision.
"BOCOG (Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) 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.
