Obviously there are some insights in Mohamed Keita's article as well. As the Africa advocacy coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, he correctly points out the positive role of free African press, which could serve as 'a key institution of development, a consumer watchdog and a way for the public to contextualize official statistics about joblessness, inflation and other social and economic concerns.' Yet we also have to realise that press freedom could develop healthily only with certain social and economic conditions such as social responsibility, sufficient education standards, a sense of citizenship, and basic economic needs being met.

I would also like to analyse the difference between popular misunderstanding and rumour. The first is by accident because of lack of aknowledge, while the second is intentional and spread through media or by mouth. In 2008, we paid a visit to Kenya to attend the 'China-African Civil Society Dialogue' organised by Boell Foundation. During the conference, I gave a public speech with two of my colleagues, Dr. Xu Weizhong and Dr. He Wenping. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Ming also made a speech. [2] During the question-and-answer of my speech, somebody raised the question, 'Are all the Chinese labourers in Kenya prison laborers?' We were quite surprised. My answer was of course definitely no, since it is almost unthinkable for the Chinese Government or companies to use prison labor outside the country. Yet there are news reports about this fabrication. After the study of the pattern of the Chinese labor in African countries, I realised the reason of the misunderstanding of the local African people.

The first reason is their appearance. Chinese labourers are mostly peasants who go abroad the first time to make money. They are dressed in their working clothes, and their expressions are usually less figurative. The second concerns segregation. The peasants know very little about the country where they are working, care less about the surroundings, and show no interest in the outside world. What is more, few of them know the local language. Therefore, they have neither the will nor the interest to communicate with the local people. To add to this, the factory is usually in a compound surrounded by fences or other obstacles and the workers seldom go out. The third concerns the workload. Usually the contracted Chinese company works to a very tight schedule since the contract takes much longer time to issue than expected, and the time period for work is not enough. [3] Therefore, the Chinese labourers have to work by three shifts, e.g. every shift works eight hours a day. Yet outside the worksite, the local people only hear the machines running and see the Chinese labourers working. This increases their speculation: those Chinese really are not the same as the other whites, and their look and behaviour are quite unique judging from the standard of the whites they have met. Who are they? They work hard, are dressed in shabby way and are locked in a compound; they must be prisoners. That is the local people's speculation and misunderstanding, and it is natural and understandable.

Yet there is another way of explanation - vicious rumour and groundless accusation as early as 1991, spread through American media by a former American official. A letter to the Editor of the New York Times appeared on May 11, 1991, which started the rumour. "The Chinese not only export goods made by prison labor, but they export prison workers too. While living in West Africa a few years ago, I learned of the case of a Chinese construction company building a road in Benin using prison labour. 70 to 75 percent of the construction workers were known to be prisoners. They were laboring on the Dassa-Parakou road in central Benin under a broiling sun and exposed to malaria and other tropical diseases. The company was the Jiangsu Construction Company, which also built a sports stadium in Cotonou, Benin's capital, and won a $3.5 million contract to build a hospital and mosque in Porto Novo. The company was able to underbid all its competitors by a wide margin because its labor costs were so cheap." [4] Who is the author? The author was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Carter Administration. Where did she get the information? Does she have any evidence? If yes, she would definitely indicate as much. If not, is this a rumor with vicious intention?