Human Rights Watch, a US-based organization, has said foreign journalists still face intimidation and limited access to parts of China despite promises that media restrictions would be loosened ahead of the Olympics.

"The gap between government rhetoric and the reality for foreign journalists remains considerable," the rights group said in a report released in Hong Kong on Monday.

"Their working conditions today, while improved in some respects, have deteriorated in other areas, dramatically in the case of Tibet.

"The result is that during a period when reporting freedoms for foreign journalists in China should be at an all-time high, correspondents face severe difficulties in accessing 'forbidden zones'."

Those zones include both areas and subjects which the Chinese government considers "sensitive" such as Tibet, which was made off-limits to foreign reporters after rioting in March.

In June, China said foreign reporters could return, but put in place an "onerous" application process that meant any permission was unlikely to be granted, the report said.

AFP news agency has an application under the process, and has not been granted permission a week after it was submitted.

Rock bottom

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, criticised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for failing to put pressure on China to improve its human rights record.

"Proponents and critics of the Beijing Games agreed on one thing, that fewer restrictions for international media and scrutiny of China at this time would constitute progress," Richardson said.

"We hit rock bottom when the president of the IOC praised the Chinese government for its improvement in human rights a few months ago, which is just plainly incompatible with the facts on the ground.

Human Rights Watch said new regulations in January 2007 that eased some restrictions on foreign journalists had led to some improvements, and the group praised China officials for intervening when journalists were detained or harassed.

However it said some officials have tried to "extort" positive coverage by threatening to withhold accreditation for the Olympics, set to begin in Beijing on August 8.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China released a statement calling on Beijing to permanently lift restrictions on journalists to travel and conduct interviews in the country.

"The government should show which way it intends to go by making access and transparency an enduring legacy of the Olympics."