[+/-] : Torchbearers donate $ to earthquake: Torch Relay is a Farce

CCTV reported Olympic torchbearers donate money to Sichuan earthquake.

Watching at near half point of video and look at the torchbearers hands, they did not put any money, their hands are empty, as they pretended donate money.


The Torch Relay is a farce. CCP's made Olympic a political and propaganda tool. CCP Shows off Communist ideology and economic, but hiding oppression in Tibet, torture, kill, imprison Tibetan, and illegal evicted Beijing resident for building stadiums upcoming Olympic. China violated more human rights contrary to its promised.
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[+/-] : 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.
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[+/-] : Boycott as the only effective form of protest

Boycott as the only effective form of protest
Posted By Beth Gandy On May 13, 2008

Beth Gandy talks to the Vice President of the European Parliament on Olympic boycott and human rights abuses China

While the Olympic Torch, the manifestation of the Olympic spirit, continues its tour around the world, April 30 marked 100 days until the start of the Games in Beijing.

However many deem China responsible for genocide in Darfur and Tibet and some vehemently uphold that it is in Tibet that the Olympic spirit died. For these reasons, should a boycott of this year’s event in China take place?


Many in the European Parliament stand by this including its Vice-President, Edward McMillan-Scott, the Conservative MEP for the Yorkshire and Humber region. He created the European Democracy Initiative in 2004 and has been actively campaigning for a debate about the prospect of a boycott.

When interviewed by Nouse he shed some light on the situation. “As the founder of the EU’s £100m democracy and human rights programme, I have tried to gauge the capacity to work in the world’s largest country and its biggest tyranny. There is a universal acknowledgement in the human rights community that the situation in China is already worse than it was in 2001 when it was awarded the games by a hopeful IOC (International Olympic Committee).”

Along with organisations such as Amnesty International, McMillan-Scott believes human rights abuse in China is actually worsening as a consequence of the Olympics. In being asked by the IOC to organise “a secure Olympics Games”, the Chinese government has resorted to more arrests of dissidents and more censorship.

The Games have in the past been used to bring estranged countries together. At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, North and South Korea entered the same stadium together during the opening ceremony for the first time, two countries that consistently antagonise each other at the negotiating table. The South Koreans, in the end, used the Olympics as a coming-out event, as it is hoped China will, and it is now a democracy.

It is thought that the Olympics will give the country exposure to the world, to different ideals will hopefully bring about change. As McMillan-Scott said: “thanks to the boycott campaign, the world is watching China.”

He went on to scrutinise Chinese politics saying that “the techniques of repression in the name of the Chinese Communist Party are so effective with their PR company teaching 84 key Beijing spokesmen how to lie about them. China is selling the same techniques to other tyrannies around the world, from Burma to Sudan to Zimbabwe”.

Politicians worldwide will now face a decision over whether to lend legitimacy to a regime with a terrible human rights record, which continues to oppress people and silence those who oppose it. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, has vowed to boycott the opening ceremony. Hilary Clinton also recently took to the stand in her election plight, urging George Bush’s administration to reconsider its Olympic plans. France’s President Sarkozy has not ruled out a boycott, and while Gordon Brown has said he will go to the closing ceremony of the Games, it is likely that in private he is uncertain about his position.

McMillan-Scott takes a powerful stand supporting the boycott saying: “It is time for the democratic world to stand up and be counted”.

Article printed from Nouse.co.uk: http://www.nouse.co.uk

URL to article: http://www.nouse.co.uk/2008/05/13/boycott-as-the-only-effective-form-of-protest/
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