Free Shi Tao

As the Olympics wind down, China has the most gold medals. It also leads the world in a more dubious category -- most reporters in prison, a medal of shame it has held nine years in a row.

In China, when a reporter pushes the government's buttons the wrong way, he can get sent to prison for a long time.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says 26 journalists are in prison in China for vague "crimes" such as subverting state security or revealing state secrets.

Among the imprisoned journalists is Shi Tao, who is serving a 10-year sentence on charges of "leaking state secrets abroad."

Tao worked for a newspaper in the Hunan Province and also wrote essays posted on overseas Web sites banned in China.

He was arrested in 2004 for posting notes from a directive from China's Propaganda Department, which told the media how to cover the 15th anniversary of the military crackdown on Tiananmen Square.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said: "Shi's imprisonment highlights the Chinese government's intense efforts to control the Internet, the only alternative to China's officially sanctioned print and broadcast media."

In the last two decades, as China has embraced a market economy, it also has given reporters more freedom.

For example, natural disasters used to be treated as state secrets. But when an earthquake struck western China in May, the government allowed open reporting -- until the reporting started raising questions about how shoddy building practices contributed to the deaths. Then it cracked down.

Many Chinese are grateful for more press freedom, said Tim Johnson, who is based in Beijing and covers China for McClatchy Newspapers, including The N&O.

But, he said via e-mail, some subjects are "absolutely radioactive for China's leadership. These subjects are Taiwan and Tibet (and Beijing's control over them), the Falun Gong religious sect, the monopoly grip on power of the Communist Party, and any issues of corruption involving the most senior leaders."

To win these Olympics, China promised more press freedom. Foreign journalists don't have to register before leaving their city of residence, as they used to. Still, some Web sites are blocked, and journalists from Japan and Great Britain have been beaten.

Chinese journalists have been given little new freedom during the Olympics, Johnson said. They still receive daily reminders of which topics are off limits.

At its heart, a free society reflects the confidence of those who run it. If you believe in your people and in your system of government, you know that free speech, no matter how painful, makes the country stronger.

These Olympics have been a coming-out party for China, which increasingly feels confident about its place in the world. But if they were truly confident, China's ruling communists would let their people speak freely.

They would stop assaulting visiting journalists.

And they would free Shi Tao.