Beijing has launched a massive security clampdown in major cities in response to the calls inspired by the "Jasmine revolution" in Tunisia, which sparked a wave of unrest against authoritarian regimes in the Arab world.

"The regime is once again reacting with a new wave of frenzied repression targeting these activists after the call for 'Jasmine Revolution'," said Renee Xia, international director of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

Xia, whose network of activists is based in Hong Kong, also called for the international community to "provide sustained and concrete support" to embattled campaigners by speaking up for them.

Authorities in China have shown increasing nervousness about the Internet's power to mobilise ordinary citizens in the wake of unrest in the Arab world, and the subsequent online call for anti-government "Jasmine" rallies at home.

Chinese police have turned out in force each of the past two Sundays in both the capital Beijing and the eastern commercial hub of Shanghai to prevent gatherings and media coverage.

Last Sunday, police manhandled foreign journalists working in a Beijing shopping street designated as a rally site, briefly detaining several of them.

Bloomberg News said one of its reporters was punched and kicked by plainclothes security. The BBC also said members of its staff were roughed up.

"The police response to the foreign journalists was a flashback to the bad old days," Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement, calling the events "alarming."

"The impulse to control journalists through fear and thuggery -- which many Chinese journalists live with every day -- seems still to also apply to the foreign media."

Human Rights in China released a statement urging the Chinese government to stop intimidating foreign journalists, investigate the rough treatment some have experienced and "release all persons taken into custody or detained as part of the efforts to prevent them from participating in the Jasmine Rallies."

Dozens of activists have been subjected to interrogation, house arrest and other restrictions or have "disappeared" since the campaign first surfaced last month, rights groups say, with several reportedly facing subversion charges.

earlier related report
Western journalists 'fabricate' news: China media
Beijing (AFP) March 3, 2011 - An official Chinese newspaper on Thursday accused foreign journalists in the country of fabricating news in the latest sign of official nerves over an online campaign for anti-government rallies.

The commentary in the Global Times came a day after police threatened foreign journalists on Wednesday that they could lose permission to work in China unless they obey vague new restrictions on covering such rallies.

"It is not unusual for Beijing-based Western journalists to receive demands from bosses in their home countries to make up stories," said an opinion piece in the paper, which is linked to the ruling Communist Party.

Western reporters "must never take delight in blind, idle chatter and instead should remember your true status and the laws of the nation where you are living."

The commentary appeared to underline rising official anxiety over an online call for rallies in cities across China each Sunday.

Although no protests have yet been seen, police have thrown tight security at the sites in the past two weeks, which last Sunday saw several foreign journalists roughed up.

The commentary blamed the presence of Western journalists for attracting crowds of curious onlookers and setting police on edge.

"Making up stories and fabricating news ... does not conform with journalist ethics nor does it really uphold justice," the commentary said.

Police have issued vague instructions to foreign journalists, telling them they must apply for permission to report at demonstration sites in Beijing.

However, no journalists who have applied for permission have yet been granted permission, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said in a notice to its members on Thursday.

The notice also warned journalists to exercise extreme caution if trying to report on the rallies on Sunday and to avoid letting police separate them from colleagues or corner them out of sight of other people.

The notice came after Bloomberg News said one of its correspondents was kicked and punched by at least five men in plainclothes -- apparently security personnel -- at Wangfujing, one of the designated locations in Beijing.

earlier related report
China rights group slams 'repression', web curbs
Beijing (AFP) March 3, 2011 - Rights campaigners in China are facing a "new wave of frenzied repression" after an anonymous online call for anti-government rallies echoing those in the Arab world, a Hong Kong-based group said Thursday.

The Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a network of activists, made the statement as it released its annual report for 2010, which catalogues a litany of alleged rights abuses, from web curbs to detentions to claims of torture.

The group called on Beijing to release all rights activists including jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, investigate security personnel accused of rights violations and guarantee free expression and unfettered Internet access.

"The fact that Liu is serving an 11-year prison sentence for engaging in peaceful advocacy for human rights and democracy also highlights the severe repression that those engaging in human rights activism can face," CHRD said.

"The regime is once again reacting with a new wave of frenzied repression targeting these activists after the call for 'Jasmine Revolution'," the group's international director Renee Xia said in a statement accompanying the report.

"The international community must do more -- it must provide sustained and concrete support to these activists by speaking up for them and providing them with resources as they inch forward in the struggle for their freedoms."

Authorities in China have become increasingly nervous about the Internet's power to mobilise ordinary citizens in the wake of unrest in the Arab world, and the subsequent online call for anti-government "Jasmine" rallies at home.

CHRD's 24-page report said the Internet was vital to activists as a tool for spreading information and organising protests but said it was "the principal arena where the battles for freedom of expression were fought out" in 2010.

The group noted attacks on the websites of activist groups including its own, the shutdown of activist blogs and microblogs, the suspension of their web access and changes to the "state secrets" law that put web campaigners at risk.

It described the Internet blackout in China's far-western Xinjiang region -- where deadly ethnic violence erupted in July 2009 -- as "the most extensive and protracted electronic communications shutdown in the Internet era in China".

The Chinese government has expended tremendous resources to police the web, blocking anti-government postings and other politically sensitive material with a system known as the "Great Firewall of China."

Foreign social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are officially blocked, yet are accessed by some of China's world-topping 457 million Internet users via proxy servers.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month renewed a call for global Internet freedom, pointing at China as one of several countries that restrict web access, impose censorship or arrest bloggers who criticise the government.

CHRD condemned restrictions on the right to freedom of association, saying those curbs worsened during "sensitive" periods such as in the weeks following the announcement of Liu's Nobel win.

It decried the illegal detention of petitioners seeking redress for alleged wrongdoings at the local level, saying it had documented more than 2,600 cases involving so-called "black jails".

Hundreds more were subjected to house arrest, short-term detentions by police or "enforced travel" -- being made to leave one's home at a sensitive period for a number of days, CHRD noted.

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