As thousands and thousands of Chinese troops flood into Tibet, all foreign journalists are being barred or expelled from Tibetan areas. China is crushing the protests in Tibet and making sure no outsiders can see.

By kicking out journalists, tourists, and in Lhasa, even foreigners who work for non-governmental organizations, the Chinese authorities are very effectively making sure there are no outside witnesses to their crackdown in Tibet. This reduces the information that the rest of the world can get about what is really happening, but it also means there is one less reason for a soldier or police officer to think twice before using violence to suppress the protests. Tibetans know this, and are afraid: as one Tibetan in Lhasa told the BBC on March 17th, "We are all very worried about the lack of western people and journalists in and around Lhasa."

The obstruction of journalists is not only dangerous, it contravenes the promise of media freedom that China gave before being awarded the Beijing Olympics. It also defies temporary new regulations passed in 2006 that were designed to give accredited foreign journalists expanded freedoms in the run-up to and during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders gives accounts of obstruction of journalists reported to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China:

"One of the cases cited by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China is that of a Finnish TV crew that was arrested on 17 March in Xiahe (in Gansu province), where there had been Tibetan demonstrations against the Chinese government. The TV crew was threatened and its video recordings were confiscated despite its protests. "You don't want to know what will happen if you don't show us the footage," one of the policemen told reporter Katri Makkonen.

Police forced journalists working for British television channel ITV to leave Xiahe the previous day after stopping them and taking a note of their names several times. They were also filmed by plain-clothes police. ITV correspondent John Ray said their Chinese driver was "terrified" when the police took down the details of his driver's licence and vehicle licence number.

Police in Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province) prevented journalists working for US television network ABC from filming in a Tibetan district on 16 March. The police told them to keep moving and made them leave in a taxi.

Correspondent Louisa Lim of US National Public Radio was turned back at several police checkpoints as she tried to travel to Xiahe. She was then followed for about 300 km by an unmarked police car until she arrived at an airport. At least two French reporters suffered the same fate in this region adjoining Tibet. Several reporters and photographers working for the Associated Press news agency were also prevented from working freely.

Spence Palermo, a US documentary filmmaker, was sequestered in his hotel room in Xiahe on 14 March to prevent him from seeing Tibetan protests. In an account he gave to CNN, he said several hundred soldiers were sent to Labrang monastery, where he had just spent several days. BBC reporters were denied access to the village of Taktser in Qinghai province, where the Dalai Lama comes from. The village is surrounded by police.

Journalists were also prevented from freely covering a small demonstration held in Beijing University on 17 March by Tibetan students, who lit candles. Dozens of the demonstrators were arrested."

Please speak up now to help get independent observers back into Tibet. Tell the Beijing 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to obey their own laws and allow foreign journalists access to Tibet.