THE NEW YORK FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, NEW YORK, NY
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2006
MS. NISBET: Good morning, everyone. I'd like to introduce Tala Dowlatshahi. She is the New York Director for Reporters Without Borders. I think most of you are familiar with Reporters Without Borders. They work to promote freedom of press and also safety issues, I think facilitative issues when it comes to protecting the press such as they have recently with a Chinese internet dissident. So we'll go ahead and get started with brief remarks from Tala and then we'll go into Q&A. Please state your name and affiliation before asking your question. I'd also like you to take a look at an initiative that State has put forth on the new Global Internet Freedom Task Force. I think this is an issue that everyone here and abroad alike are paying attention to.
Thank you, Tala.
MR. DOWLATSHAHI: Thank you, Kim. I really want to say thank you to Kim Nisbet for organizing and working with me on this for this panel. Kim and I had the opportunity of meeting at the International Academy of Television Arts and Science Emmy Awards, which chronicles issues of reporting in war zones, in regions that we don't hear about. And that was a really wonderful event and that's when I met Kim. So thanks again for that.
My name is Tala Dowlatshahi and I am the U.S. representative of Reporters Without Borders in New York. Reporters Without Borders is an organization that was established in 1985 under our Secretary General Robert Ménard in Montpellier. The organization celebrated its 20th anniversary this past June. And the impetus for starting the organization was really about the idea that news from independent media in countries that we don't hear about just doesn't get out to the mainstream and Robert wanted to ensure that journalists who are not the big guns are getting the protections that they need.
Reporters Without Borders has covered several campaigns but our main mandate is Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that article is under the Geneva Convention and underscores that every citizen under this universal standard is allowed to receive and impart information. And what does that mean? It means that when a journalist, for example, is a freelancer and is going into Iraq, they should season themselves with the international conventions that protect them under international law. They should also look to different charters that Reporters Without Borders has prepared in coordination and cooperation with UNESCO to ensure their protection. And they should also, the third tier of that, set up an insurance policy that would enable them to get protection for their families when they are going into a crisis zone. And that is just one part of the article that entitles a reporter to international protection under international law.
The war in Iraq, the civil disturbances abroad, conflicts in Africa, feuding factions, clampdowns on the internet, the vast expansion of globalization, have really put journalism at the forefront of not only the world's -- at the top of the world's most dangerous profession, but this past year in 2005 Reporters Without Borders chronicled the deaths of 68 journalists, 1,300 beaten, over 800 arrested and 1,000 media outlets censored or shut down -- the largest number of journalists killed since the war in Vietnam -- just this past year. And we have to keep in mind, the war in Vietnam was over a number of years.
Why are the number of deaths of journalists increasing? One of the facts that we can turn to is to go back to Iraq: the case of Bob Woodruff, which we have all heard about; the kidnapping of journalists, the Jill Carroll case with the Christian Science Monitor; the death of Enzo Baldoni working for RAI Television, the Italian-based television in August 2004; Daniel Pearl.
One of the central issues here is that journalists are no longer seen as the objective viewers of the story. In the Jill Carroll case, she was kidnapped in early January. Symbolically, she is being represented as the carrier of the foreign policy of her government. That's the first step of it. The Vengeance Brigade that kidnapped her, the insurgent group that kidnapped her, was relatively unknown to any of us. Who knew about the Vengeance Brigade? Now we know what religious group they represent, what agenda they have, what their goals are. And Jill Carroll is symbolically being used as the medium for the insurgent group. They know very well that kidnapping a foreign correspondent will gain a vast amount of international media coverage and will spotlight their issues and they've placed two key demands.
One, from a U.S. foreign policy standpoint, they are saying that they want the military to remove their troops out and that Jill Carroll is symbolizing the American foreign policy initiative. The second is that she's representing gender, because she as a female has been taken hostage and the insurgent group has demanded that the female Iraqi detainees be released by the U.S. military. So she's representing symbolically two central issues.
A third tier of discussion with the Jill Carroll case is the Christian Science Monitor. Now, we may or may not know that the Christian Science Monitor is not a religious media agency. They carry the name the Christian Science Monitor but there have been several criticisms by the Vengeance group that she is representing Christianity and she is coming to Iraq also as a journalist who is trying to promote a religious agenda.
In the case of Enzo Baldoni, who is working for RAI Television, the Italian-based television, he was kidnapped in early August 2004. He was held by his insurgent groups who demanded from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that he remove all of his Italian troops from the region. Berlusconi said no. Enzo Baldoni was beheaded in August 2004. Again, another situation where a journalist is now symbolically representing the government's foreign policy agenda.
Now, if we turn to China, a country that is faced with a conundrum, one is that they are the -- if not the key player in the globalized marketplace in terms of the economic side, they are faced with a conundrum that every day the number of internet users adds on to a list that is continuously building, but at the same time the Communist regime is trying to clamp down on the types of information the members of Chinese civil society are able to get. So what is happening in China? The Chinese Government has a lot of power and internet companies that are created under U.S. corporate ethical responsibilities, the template under U.S. corporate guidelines, are bending their rules to work in the Chinese -- with the Chinese Government. And why do they do so? Well, it's not hard for us to all understand that it's about big dollars at the end of the day. If they don't agree to bend their rules, the Chinese Government will simply go to another internet company.
In the summer, this past summer, Microsoft Spaces provided service base to Chinese -- members of Chinese civil society to start up web blogs. In one week, one million web blogs were started up. The Chinese Government said hold on a minute. Why not have these web bloggers register their blogs with us first, and if they don't do so, they will be fined. And then the third tier of that is they'll be called in and they'll be questioned.
So members of the Chinese civil society registered their web blogs. The Chinese Government took it even a step further and said, well, these web blogs are talking about issues that we're not very comfortable about. There are certain phrases that are deemed to be -- and this is the language; it's vague, but this is the language that they have used -- "subversive, threatening the national security, influencing Chinese political opinion in the wrong way." These words or phrases include human rights, democracy, free Tibet, Taiwan independence, Dali Lama.
Microsoft Spaces agreed that they would censor this type of language on their web blog. So if you go to Microsoft Spaces and you startup a web blog in China that says Tiananmen Square you will not be able to do so. You will get a response back that says, "This is prohibited language" by the Chinese Government.
The second tier to that, Google. I'm sure that many of us have heard the story about what has happened with Google. Google.cn has agreed and their -- Andrew McLaughlin who is their senior counsel has come back with an official statement saying that Google has agreed to censure information. And their main backing or explanation for it, which is unacceptable to our organization, is that when working in a particular cultural environment, regardless of U.S. corporate ethical responsibility and standards, the government has to bend its rules to work in that cultural environment. They have censored language democracy as well, following along the lines of Microsoft and Yahoo. And if you go into Google.cn -- just do it today, if you can access, you'll see words like democracy. But if you go within China and type in democracy, even with a "k," you will not be able to access it. If you type in Tiananmen, plus massacre, you will not be able to access it.
But people have come back to us and said, in some places in Beijing cafes you are able to see it, but then it will shut down after a minute or something will be slow about the access. They have an extremely sophisticated monitoring system within China, and that's the second step of it. Is that U.S.-based companies like Cisco and Nextel are providing surveillance equipment, selling surveillance equipment to the Chinese Government in order to monitor their email and exchange.
So this past month, on the 15th of February, there was a U.S. congressional hearing in which our Washington correspondent, Lucie Morillon participated and issued a statement as a witness testimonial on what was happening with Google in China. She addressed Chairman Leach and Smith and I just want to read a bit about what we are proposing -- have been in terms of the Chinese Government's responsibility.
"Reporters Without Borders has been writing to the CEOs of several corporations since
2002, proposing an exchange of ideas on this issue. None of our letters have been
answered. We have also tried to alert the shareholders of these companies through their
investment funds. On November 7, in New York, we presented a joint statement in which 25 investment firms managing some 21 billion dollars in assets agreed to monitor the activities of Internet companies operating in repressive countries. Aside from Google, all the companies we approached refused to enter into a dialog on this subject. Cisco reacted only last November, after one of our statements was covered by the media.
Thanks to media and congressional attention on these issues, some of these companies
are starting to consider the consequences of their activities in repressive regimes. This promising development needs to be followed up by concrete action.
Our recommendations: Reporters Without Borders proposes six concrete ways to make these companies behave ethically in repressive countries, including China. These recommendations are being presented to the federal government and U.S. Congress. Nonetheless, these proposals concern all democratic countries and have therefore been sent to European Union officials, as well as to the Secretary General of the OECD.
Our proposals: E-mail services -- No US company would be allowed to host e-mail servers within a repressive country. Therefore, if the authorities of a repressive country want personal information about any user of a US company’s e-mail server, they would have to request it under a U.S. supervised procedure.
Two -- Search engines. Search engines would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor "protected" words. The list of "protected" keywords such as "democracy" or "human rights" would be appended to the law or code of conduct.
Three: Content hosts; websites blogs, discussions forums, et cetera. US companies would not be allowed to locate their host servers within repressive countries. If the authorities of a repressive country desire to close down a publication hosted by a US company, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by US judicial authorities. Like search engines, content hosts would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor "protected" keywords.
Four: Internet censorship technologies. Reporters Without Borders proposes two options: option one, a U.S. company would no longer be allowed to sell internet censorship software to repressive states; option two, they would still be able to market this type of software but it would have to be incorporated a list of -- it would have to incorporate a list of protected keywords rendered technically impossible to censor.
Internet surveillance technology and equipment, number four: U.S. companies would have to obtain the express permission of the Department of Commerce in order to sell to a repressive country any technology or equipment that can be used to intercept electronic communications, or which is specifically designed to help the authorities monitor Internet users.
Five -- or is this six -- six, sorry. Training: U.S. companies would have to obtain the express permission of the Department of Commerce before providing any internet surveillance and censorship techniques training program in a repressive country. A list of countries that repress freedom of expression would be drawn up on the basis of documents provided by the U.S. State Department and would be appended to the code
of conduct or law that is adopted. This list would be regularly updated.
And those are our proposals.
The Chinese Government currently has 72 people, journalists and cyber dissidents in prison and these are quite Draconian measures. Shi Tao was a journalist working with a local paper in China. There was information sent out by the Chinese government on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square to the editors of Chinese newspapers and television, et cetera, asking the editors to keep their journalists quiet. They didn't want to fuss, they didn't want any drama. They knew that the international media was going to be creating quite a mayhem around this 15th anniversary. Shi Tao intercepted this information and via his Yahoo address sent it out to expatriate websites to inform them that this was happening.
Yahoo was approached by Chinese police and members of government and requested from a legal side to provide that internet address information and all of the different messages that were sent out. They did so and Shi Tao was sentenced to ten years behind bars. They have since discussed and eight-year term and Reporters Without Borders is following up on that information.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Chinese dissidents (inaudible) currently?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: There are 49 journalists in jail and 32 -- I'm sorry, 32 cyber dissidents.
QUESTION: Just in (inaudible)?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Just in China.
Yahoo has been approached several times by our organization and other human rights organizations within China, demanding an explanation. From a legal standpoint various spokespeople have come back to us and said, look, once they are in the country and we are operating with Hong Kong Limited*, they're presented from a legal standpoint with a
request to provide information from a legal standpoint, they have to abide by those rules. That is not the argument that we're trying to present here. We're not trying to say once it goes to the legal side. What we are trying to speak about is the indirect participation of a U.S. corporate company, internet giant, indirectly participating in jailing a journalist.
And so what does this all mean? When I do interview people ask me so what are you trying to say, just get to the point. Well, we don't really have a specific point. These are about principles and ethics and these are very loose and vague terms, but it's about ideologies and ideals. If this is a country that is promoting and preaching democracy, and U.S. corporate giants are trying to create an open internet marketplace with dialogue and exchange and international globalized community, then they have to abide by those standards. It is a universal standard and ethic that they must abide by and that is what we are asking for. We are asking that these ethics and principles under our Article 19 of the universal standard be supported and that is what we're calling for. And we are not getting responses back. We are getting ignored. We are getting denials; we're not getting any messages back.
And thankfully on the side of the Secretary of State with this new global internet forum, with the Chairmen Leach and Smith, with Senator Lugar over the Freedom of Information Act, this is a bipartisan effort to really put pressure on these governments and on these internet giants to establish a code of conduct on an ethics and principle position to be able to work in these countries. Somewhere along the line, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, et cetera, have to draw a line in the sand and say, no, we cannot filter this type of information and other internet giants need to go along with them so that the Chinese Government doesn't have another place to turn.
And what does that mean? Well, they could lose out on some money, and at this point, they're not willing to do so and that's what we're faced with.
If I could turn to Cuba, you have this information that we've just spread around. We've had a campaign ongoing for several years entitled, "Cuba Si, Castro No." In March 2003 Fidel Castro, under the kind of -- using the rhetoric of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in order to ensure or to protect the national security interests of Cuba, Fidel Castro was going to start monitoring and clamping down on information. Is this something new? No. I mean, people have called into jails in Cuba for decades. But this new initiative targeted journalists, writers, activists, poets, anyone writing about anti-Castro or trying to engage in anti-Castro dialogue.
In March 2003, Cuban police barged down the doorways of 27 journalists, prominent journalists, including Raul Rivera, who's a prominent writer. Hauled them into jail, no legal process, no access to their families, each one sentenced from 14 to 27 years behind bars and these journalists are still in jail. Fortunately, through our organization's work and with Amnesty International support, Raul Rivera was released last year, saying the situation in the jails was revolting. There were white torture campaigns where journalists are beaten at the soles of their feet. Journalists who are suffering from asthma are not given their medication. Journalists are getting quite ill. They are trying to promote hunger campaigns and are being ignored. Starve yourself is what they're being told. And our organization has been working quite closely with a very prominent expatriate community in Florida of Cuban people as well as human rights organizations to really put pressure on Castro to release their journalists. And this has been an ongoing campaign since March 2003.
Just a couple of other points and then I'll just turn to Q&A. And, Kim, I just wanted to clarify the number, I'm sorry, because I think I may have given you the wrong number. I have a lot of numbers going through my head. There are 81 journalists and cyber dissidents currently behind bars and 49 of them are journalists, so you do the math about the cyber dissidents.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) anyone that are in cyber --
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Forty-nine journalists. And the 81 total and 49, so that's 31, 32; 32 cyber dissidents.
Africa. Africa is plagued with a different kind of phenomena. The phenomena that occurs in Africa is linked a lot to the political situation with, for example, a country like Zimbabwe, where Mugabe has been for several years implementing a nationalist policy to cleanse white farm workers and anyone from the previous colonial history out of the country.
Foreign correspondents have really had to suffer the price of that by being kicked out, by being detained, by being harassed to a point where they were forced out of the country. Journalists who are nationalist in Zimbabwe, who are writing about the issue, who are themselves critical of Mugabe's regime are punished with heavy fines. They are jailed. They are beaten. Their wives are threatened, their families' lives, the daily mental punishment and cruelty on these journalists' families and that is something that we have been trying to monitor and put pressure on governments in Africa, including, in particular, in Zimbabwe on the treatment of journalists in that region.
So I'll just stop here and maybe turn to some Q&A and then we can go back to some stats or --
MS. NISBET: I think most of you know this because I we've got a regular press corps here. Just mention your name the first time around and your affiliation; after that it's not necessary.
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: If I could just also introduce everyone to our New York Communications officer, Todd Lester.
QUESTION: Neeme Raud, Estonia. One country you didn't mention is Russia which is a very interesting situation. The press (inaudible) relatively free and now is going back to this totalitarian model. What's your comments on Russia?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Well, there was a very prominent case with Paul Klebnikov from Forbes magazine who was shot and killed in Russia a year and a half ago. We really mobilized to try to figure out what was happening. A lot of the journalists now are writing about issues that have to do with Chechnya that may be anti-Putin in terms of supporting the Chechnyan rebels and their kind of nationalist movement on the borders, in which could be the direct link between media coverage and kind of churning against the government. And Putin has been very fearful of that and so a lot of journalists have been clamped down in that regard.
Paul Klebnikov was covering an issue for Forbes where he was exposing members of the Russian Government with direct links to mafia groups and it is believed that he was targeted for that reason in particular. It has been a very frightening situation for journalists in Russia, but are in border regions with the Orange Revolution former Soviet blocked countries like Ukraine juxtaposed to Russia, have had a relatively, not enormous, but are gaining some open dialogue in exchange in terms of the youth population in the Ukraine starting up web blogs and really speaking about the new government and trying to open up dialogue after such a repressive time in the region. So it is a very difficult situation. You have mafia groups, you have Chechnya rebels and you have a very, very nervous government.
QUESTION: What is your organization doing in cases like that? Are you issuing reports, trying to pressure and mobilize international support? There's another country -- Belarusia -- that the U.S. Government is really, and the European Union, isn't really actively monitoring before the elections. And I think President Bush just met with some prominent dissidents yesterday. So what can you do on your part to bring some change?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Well, our organization monitors when the president is coming to this country or going to a specific region. So we will issue letters of -- some kind of lobbying letters to the government and other governments where that president may be going. If they're going to be visiting the European Commission, our headquarters is based in Paris, we will make sure that the European Commission is aware of these key issues that they need to address with the President when he goes there or key officials.
We also generate letter-writing campaigns and ask members of civil society within Russia to begin lobbying from the grassroots up. We believe that it's an issue of bringing it from, you know, the soil up and that we can't just be organizations on the periphery, on the outside -- that the members of civil society need to start becoming aware of what's happening. So we will really -- our main goal and what we do in terms of our daily activities is to generate press releases, to get members of Russian media to write about this issue if they can in a safe regard -- expatriate Russian websites and media to write about the issue. We liaison with a lot of U.S. media to get it at the -- on top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda, so that if Bush should be going there or if Condoleezza Rice is visiting Russia she can have a discussion about this -- about these issues.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) we read quite a lot of reports and free postings in China language after the congressionalist testimony and hearings. And some of the people in China saying that if you drive those companies out, if they refuse to cooperate with Chinese Government they will have to be out. And if you drive those out, it leaves to the Chinese who live in China have no other choice but using the Chinese censored or Chinese Government-owned companies hosting their webs. And that would be an even greater difficulty for them to get the words out. What's your comment on that?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Reporters Without Borders would say the line in the sand needs to be drawn and that the Chinese Government would not from an economic standpoint eliminate working with U.S.-based corporations and companies. That just would not happen. But they're winning. The Chinese Government is winning. U.S. corporations are easily, flexibly, willingly bending their rules.
MS. NISBET: Have you received any comments from -- maybe you mentioned this earlier, but any comments from some of these servers? Yahoo and Google, have they had comments?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Well, Andrew McLaughlin from Google, he's the senior counsel and spokesperson, has come back with a statement that is posted. So if you go to Google.cn you can read that statement. And essentially, like many of the organizations will come back -- the internet giant spokespeople will come back with "In order to be able to work in a cultural environment, a particular cultural environment from a U.S. corporate ethical standpoint, we have to be sensitive to that cultural environment's needs." The needs of American citizens in terms of the information they need is very different from that type -- in terms of information that the Chinese Government -- members of civil society need. And we have to be able to work with the government and not kind of implement our own standards and these are just vague false statements.
I mean, if there was a principle that was established under this U.S. corporate template. That template should be duplicated abroad and should continue being duplicated abroad. And they're just not willing to do so and that has been very, very frustrating. And so this congressional hearing was -- it received a phenomenal amount of media coverage worldwide because it was a big step to get a very powerful government, which is the U.S. Government behind us -- organizations like our own -- to try to really put pressure on this government, because we cannot continue to have Google once it bends its rules in China then it could start to work in Cuba to limit information in Cuba. And this is going to be a very dangerous precedent for free expression and free access to information globally.
MS. NISBET: Really it comes down to social responsibility.
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Mm-hmm. They said they're being socially responsible by not trying to incite --
QUESTION: (Inaudible) our values and our policy.
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Right. And that's just not acceptable.
QUESTION: Lillian Lin, Central News Agency, Taiwan. So in addition to the six-step proposal, what's the position of Reporters Without Borders regarding the infiltration of the firewall -- some efforts, private efforts of organizations? Will you coordinate this kind of effort?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: We are not -- our mandate isn't to participate in the infiltration of firewalls. What we do is we criticize when certain systems are set up to monitor information. And so we will go directly to those software companies like Cisco and Nextel and say stop selling surveillance equipment to the Chinese Government. But we monitor through our representatives that are based in the region. It's quite difficult to get a lot of access to representatives and get information out of China, but when we do we try to see what kinds of different systems are being set up to try to get information, to open up information channels. And it's been very difficult, if non-existent.
QUESTION: What do you expect from market economy there at this point from these corporations?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: From a market economy viewpoint, they want to sign the deal at the end of the day, and so they'll continue to do so. Unless, like I was mentioning earlier with this congressional hearing, we get pressure put on these companies from the inside. And that's why we signed the shareholder agreement, where we've asked shareholders, again going from the grassroots -- from the soil up, the insides of the company to begin lobbying the company heads and ask for -- and demand that they stop working with oppressive regimes.
QUESTION: So doesn't the United States (inaudible) by the attitude of European governments?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: The EU has been very critical of what's happening in China -- OECD as well. This has been a full-fledged global community effort to try to open up channels. There's not a specific political agenda here and this has to be known. This is nothing something where if the Chinese Government opens up information there's a specific agenda, but the Chinese Government has a political agenda and that's what's happening. It's like Communism -- with a Communist regime it's a conundrum -- how can a Communist regime function within an open media, globalized marketplace? And it's functioning but at the disadvantage of U.S. corporations. I mean, the U.S. corporations are bending their rules to the Chinese Government, when the Chinese Government should really be opening up its channels and access -- to be able to have access for its citizens.
I mean, you can't give web blogs free space from MSN and have them start up web blogs and say, well, we don't like the web blogs you're starting. I mean, the great point about web blogs is that it's no longer us at the forum -- journalists, you know. It's the citizens as journalists. Anyone can be a journalist now and any one can startup a column and anyone can startup a web blog, but not in China. And you can only speak about certain issues, when the main issues people want to talk about in China are Taiwan independence, human rights, democracy, access to information, Tiananmen Square. These are issues that web blogs are about and they're just not able to do so.
QUESTION: When Hu Jintao visits the United States in April could it be an issue raised by Reporters Without Borders.
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: It will definitely be an issue that will be raised by reporters. Jintao has -- for several visits that have occurred over the past several years, this is not just a new phenomenon that started in 2006. This has been happening for several years, as globalization continues and web blogs startup. If Jintao will be meeting with, you know, Condoleezza Rice, we will be sending out letters. We will be trying to mobilize. We will be trying to alert media of this visit and the responsibilities so that it gets printed up prior to his visit and during his visit that these are the issues that need to be highlighted. So that's the way that we would work.
QUESTION: Andrey Shirikov, Tass news agency. Does you organization have an opinion about what is happening in Gaza where journalists are being taken (inaudible) almost regularly?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Well, there have been several incidents over the course of the past few years, where Israeli military have targeted journalists, in particular Palestinian journalists who have attempted to get into the region and expose certain issues. We have written letters. The Israeli media is relatively open to dialogue, in terms of there's a plethora of media within Israel, Arab-based media and so forth and there are lots of issues where people are allowed to discuss it, unless the journalist goes to the West Bank or Gaza and is trying to cross a border region that is being monitored by the U.S. -- I'm sorry, the Israeli military. And there have been situations where journalists have been targeted. And our organization has written to the Israeli Government and demanded action in terms of ensuring the safety and protection of these journalists. And it doesn't do any good to try and engage in the peace process and negotiations in terms of borders and have journalists getting shot and killed. It's only going to actually light the fire even more, so that's really our position -- we will write to members of the government and try to really call for a protection of journalists who are trying to cover those issues.
Again, you can go back to Vietnam -- the Maurie Povich, you know, journalists who were non-embedded in those days went -- I say those days, it was way before I was born. (Laughter.) But in that era, they were not non-embedded and you have the Maurie Povich piece where, you know, he's going into -- with U.S. military and he's on the camera and he's, you know, "come on in" to American homes and watch the U.S. soldiers pull out Vietnamese women and light their houses on fire. That type of coverage was deemed by many critics to have turned American public opinion against the war, and so you have governments that are very much linking media coverage to turning the popular opinion against them. And so you have, like in Russia, in, you know, with the Israeli military targeting journalists, several issues that the government is fearful about exposing and, therefore, the journalists will be attacked.
MS. NISBET: Any additional questions?
QUESTION: Dave Watkins, South China Morning Post. I was wondering how the organization is braced for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, when this, you know, the whole restricted culture will pushed to the limit by a massive influx of international journalists. I mean, is it something that you guys are building up to, you know, is it something that you have in mind as a potential sort of flashpoint there?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Well, we've been kicked out of the region several times when we tried to promote or try to go on fact-finding mission meetings and try to work with members of Chinese human rights organizations. So we would be very critical about -- and very kind of active about making sure that journalists, international journalists, were able to get access to information when they go to the region. That they were going to be treated fairly and they weren't going to be monitored in their hotel rooms with the kinds of internet access that they had there and that does occur. And so we would really be looking to that -- that type of platform to ensure that they were not going to be kind of followed around.
It also happened in the United States. I mean, the Epoch Times reporter who was based in Atlanta -- and I'm sure you probably heard about this story -- received a knock on his door and this was about five weeks ago -- movers. The Epoch Times is a Chinese-based newspaper that writes about issues but from here. A knock on the door -- movers -- opens the door, three Chinese men come in, beat him up and they took both his laptops and all his files -- that's it. And they left.
So there are, you know, informants or informers that do -- kind of base themselves here and monitor Chinese journalists. So it is a very, very horrifying situation at the moment, and that's why, you know, China was one of the highlights of this briefing. Is that we all need to write more about what's happening in China. We all need to alert the international community more and really put pressure on this government to stop doing what it's doing. And this country has so much power and it's winning. It's making, you know, the governments that are at the top end of democracy just say okay, because it has so much economic power and that's what's so frightening about it.
QUESTION: Some of your -- some of the dissidents that are in jail, what is the first step in contacting the government in (inaudible) sort of their relief, which I know sounds a lot easier than really what it is?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: It's very difficult. You don't get access to the prisoners. They're sent away and they're locked up and they're tortured and they don't have access to their family. And these are not two-month terms; these are ten years and they're just locked up and put away.
QUESTION: So it can be a long process before you even get close to finding out what's happening (inaudible)?
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Well, we work with their lawyers and we continue to kind of ask for Yahoo that indirectly contributed to like Shi Tao's jailing to speak with the Chinese Government to try to do something to get him released. I mean, he sent an email that was sent to his editor out to an expatriate website. Now, if any of us do this here, I don't think we're going to face ten years behind bars. But Yahoo is not willing to do so because they said that they've acted in a legally viable manner and that they are -- they're just not willing to do so.
MS. NISBET: I know that some of you had expressed interest in one-on-one interviews, but Tala is leaving in a few minutes for Paris. I don't know if you have an extra five or 10 minutes --
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Sure.
MS. NISBET: -- to do so. We thank you for coming. You can look for the transcript on our website.
MS. DOWLATSHAHI: Thank you.
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