Challenging censors in Beijing

China's ludicrous effort to restrict demonstrations at the UN conference on women broke down almost as soon as non-government participants assembled on Thursday, at a site 40 miles (64 km) from Beijing. Women accustomed to fighting for their rights were not about to be intimidated by the bureaucrats and security guards of a communist police state.

There is no place for censorship at an international conference like this. The women know that. The Chinese do not. If the Chinese fail to lift the restrictions entirely, the participants should make enforcement of them as exasperating to the authorities as possible.

Originally, China ordered public political activities confined to a small area of the forum site and prohibited any criticism of Chinese policies and practices. But on the forum's first day, an overflow crowd of 4,000 women crowded around a movie theater that showed the Myanmarese Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on videotape denouncing her country's ruling junta and all other authoritarian regimes. A Tibetan women's group also managed to screen its videotape after security officers unsuccessfully attempted to confiscate it.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International displayed images of female political prisoners, including two held by Beijing -- Gao Yu, a prominent Chinese journalist, and Phuntsog Niydrou, a Tibetan nun serving a 17-year sentence. After the Amnesty group deliberately marched outside the area allotted to demonstrations, Chinese authorities retreated, announcing that the less restrictive rules used by the United Nations would apply throughout the forum site. More tests are sure to come, with the main conference opening on Monday in the heart of Beijing.

China's leaders remain determined to prevent discussions about individual rights and social and political change from seeping into their own tightly repressed society. Coverage by the official Chinese media has been highly selective. But having sought the international prestige of playing host to this conference, Beijing is obliged to drop its attempts to censor the participants. Instead it should let its own people benefit from the ideas and experiences that will be discussed at the meetings.

At first China saw its role in the conference as a way to advertise its recent economic gains and its determination to take a more active place in international affairs. That seemed even more important after human rights problems cost China its chance to stage the 2000 Olympics. But later, Chinese leaders began to panic about what might happen as tens of thousands of experienced political activists and representatives from the world's press descended on Beijing.

The clumsy and repressive steps that followed reinforce the view that the Olympic site selection committee made exactly the right call. UN authorities, for their part, should have stepped in earlier to challenge China's approach to conference planning.

It makes good sense to hold the Fourth World Women's Conference in a country that is home to one-fifth of the world's women -- provided those women get a chance to hear and see the proceedings.

-- The New York Times