Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department will take to help ensure that British journalists are able to report freely during the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

Our concerns over media freedom and other human rights issues in China are well known. Officials have engaged British Olympic Association-accredited media on the likely conditions for journalists in Beijing and stand ready to provide support throughout the Games. We continue to raise media freedom with the Chinese authorities, urging them to allow journalists to practice their profession without fear of arrest, harassment or reprisal, and to end extensive censorship and control over the media and wider freedom of expression.