Beijing Olympic Committee Refusing All Telephone Interviews To Avoid Falun Gong Journalists

Jiang Xiaoyu, Vice Chairman of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee, said that the Committee will not accept interviews with international news media by telephone because the reporters might represent the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to an August 8 report in The Australian. The report quoted Jiang as saying, "The problem with telephone interviews is that we can't identify the person on the line, which media he represents, and whether he is a journalist or not . . . . For example the Falun Gong cult is illegal in China but they have their own journalists."

According to his official biography on the Beijing 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee Web site, Vice Chairman Jiang also currently serves as Deputy Director of the Beijing Municipal Communist Party Central Committee Propaganda Department.