From globeandmail.com, a commentary by Human Rights Watch researcher Phelim Kine:

Today is Journalists' Day in China, but there's no reason for celebration by reporters who cover the world's most populous nation.

Like any other day, journalists in China will be subjected to routine harassment by a government that continues to defy its pledges to a free media. What's dismaying this year is that the International Olympic Committee — an organization that says it is dedicated to "ethical principles" and "preservation of human dignity" — is passively accepting such blatant violations of the Chinese government's Olympic-related media-freedom commitments.

In order to play host to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese government promised the IOC that it would relax its chokehold on foreign media coverage during the Games. New, temporary regulations permitting foreign journalists to talk to any consenting interviewees went into effect on Jan. 1, freeing correspondents from a long-standing regulatory handcuff that requires government approval for almost all interviews. That should be good news for the many Canadian journalists who will join the more than 20,000 foreign journalists who will cover the Games in Beijing.

The temporary regulations look good on paper. Yet, foreign correspondents continue to harassed, detained and intimidated by government functionaries, security forces and growing ranks of plainclothes thugs who appear to operate at official behest. The IOC's failure to speak out about such violations will put those journalists who go to Beijing at risk of similar abuses.