IOC president: No regret, no apology

8:27 AM, August 2, 2008

BEIJING -- Jacques Rogge was adamant in defending an untenable position on Saturday night.

Responding to a firestorm of criticism about China's ham-handed censorship of media access to the Internet, the International Olympic Committee president's bottom line was "absolutely no regrets'' about the IOC's having awarded the Games to China.

Rogge wound up praising China in much the same way some Italians lauded their World War II dictator, Benito Mussolini, for making the trains run on time.

"May I kindly remind you what the topics and the headlines were in Athens a week before the [2004] Olympic Games,'' Rogge said. "The question mark was, 'Will the venues be ready? Will the organization be ready?' The [Beijing] venues have been ready since a year ago.

"Where we had great concerns in Athens about the organization, but still had wonderful Games, thanks to the Greeks' love for the Games, today we have absolutely no concerns about the organization.''

And what about China's promises about free movement of information, which Chinese officials have treated with the same disdain they do human rights and Tibet?

The last week has brought suggestions that the IOC leadership was complicit in Chinese censorship.

Rogge denied what the head of his press commission had said, that the IOC had made a deal that allowed China to back off its promise of unfettered Internet access for journalists working in media centers. He claimed the IOC wanted such access.

But he conceded this was a matter for the Chinese government to decide and declined to apologize to the media for the censorship -- blocking certain websites -- the Chinese are exercising.

"When Beijing was awarded the Games, the IOC required it to provide media with the fullest access possible to report,'' Rogge said. "This is what the [Beijing organizing committee] has said it will do.''

Rogge said the Chinese acceded Wednesday to IOC pressure and opened some websites, including those of the BBC in Mandarin and of Amnesty International. But there is far from full access.

The restrictions had led IOC member Kevan Gosper, the press commission head, to apologize to the media and suggest the IOC leadership had done a wink-wink thing with the Chinese on Internet restrictions. Rogge said Gosper simply had a mis-impression, even if "he believed genuinely and in good faith that a deal had been struck.''

"I'm not going to make an apology for something the IOC is not responsible for,'' Rogge said. "We are not running the Internet in China. The Chinese authorities are running the Internet.

"Let me be very clear. The IOC is in favor of the broadest availability of Internet for the media."

That's called trying to have it both ways -- appearing to push for freedom of information while knowing it was impossible without having wielded the ultimate cudgel back when it still was realistic: the threat of removing the Games from Beijing.

That is the IOC position, and it is regrettable.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge speaks during a press conference at the main press center in Beijing on Saturday. Credit: Alexander Joe AFP/Getty Images