Activists carry torch to protest human-rights violations in China

Activists carry torch to protest human-rights violations in China
by Christa Hillstrom May 14, 2008

Like the games in Germany in 1936, and in the Soviet Union in 1980, this year’s Beijing Olympics will go down in history as a gross corruption of the Olympic spirit, said Chen Kai, former member of China’s national basketball team.


Kai, now a U.S. citizen, is part of an international movement called the Human Rights Torch Relay that is spreading this message across 37 countries on five continents, including more than 36 U.S. cities.

Chicago is one of those cities. More than 100 people gathered in Lincoln Park on Saturday to support the torch’s Chicago run— a 2 kilometer symbolic walk around the pond.

The relay is intended to raise awareness about human rights violations in China, such as the persecution of the religious group, Falun Gong.

Eleven speakers offered their support, including Mayor Jim Burke of Dixon, a representative of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago), and students and activists.

"This torch is hugely significant because it symbolizes our united stance in a worldwide effort to raise awareness about not only the human rights abuses of the Chinese Communist Party, but also the ongoing persecutions of people under corrupt regimes in the countries of Myanmar, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Darfur and wherever unjust practices are being inflicted upon humankind," said Dorothy Brown, Cook County circuit clerk, in a statement read by her representative, Jalyne Strong.

The goals of the relay, organizers said, are to create a platform to speak about injustices perpetrated by the Chinese government.

Sharon Kilarski, spokeswoman for the Relay, said the running of the torch uses global attention on the Olympics to spotlight these injustices, but is not anti-China and does not promote a boycott of the Olympics.

Using the games to promote an image of China that ignores human-rights issues is deceitful, said Kai.

“China has already become ... a cheap prostitute using Olympics as makeup to hide and disguise itself, and now it wants to make love to the world,” he said.

He added that he has hope for his homeland’s future, comparing his own dream of Chinese freedom and unity to that of one of his adopted nation’s heroes, Martin Luther King Jr.

“I dream that one day the Chinese people will free themselves,” he said.

Other “human rights torches” were simultaneously run in Detroit and Evansville, Ind. Saturday, and the next stops on the international tour include cities in Canada and Asia.