Amnesty website in China

Dear Sylwia,

In China, you're banned from looking at the Amnesty International web site - even if you're a journalist covering the Olympic Games!

Yesterday, we wrote to you asking you to join Amnesty in urging President Bush to publicly condemn China's human rights violations before the Summer Games begin on August 8^th.


Today, I'm asking you to make a donation to support Amnesty's work to fight these abuses and draw worldwide attention to China's broken promises.

Now, we've learned that a day after Amnesty International issued a comprehensive report on how the Chinese government was failing to live up to its promises on human rights, the Chinese government shut down access to our web site - even for foreign reporters in Beijing to cover the Olympics.

Internet censorship for the people of China is nothing new, but the Olympics were supposed to be different. When China bid for the Olympics in 2001, it declared that it would "give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China" if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Beijing to host the Games.


With your financial support, Amnesty International will continue to call for an end to media censorship, work to free those wrongly detained for acts of peaceful self-expression, and speak on behalf of China's citizens who have been silenced against their will.

Failure to speak out now is to miss the unique opportunity to push for positive human rights change in China.

With your help, Amnesty will continue to pressure Chinese authorities to grant foreign and local journalists alike the freedom to report on the news as they see fit - and honor their commitments as Olympic host.

Update: and look what's happening...

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