Boycott Beijing Olympic Games 2008

[Ming]

An alternative torch relay -- Global Human Rights Torch Relay (http://www.humanrightstorch.org) -- has been initiated by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (http://www.CIPFG.org) to raise awareness of the despicable human rights situation in China.

The Human Rights will go through more than 100 cities in 35 countries and will arrive in Dublin on 17th Oct. A series of events will be held. See details below.

According to CIPFG's statement, "The Torch Relay is aimed at urging the international community to boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing as we believe hosting the Olympics in Beijing would be a travesty of the Olympic spirit and a direct violation of the Olympic Charter that promotes 'the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with preservation of human dignity'."

Press Conference:
Time: 1:30PM-2:00PM
Date: Wednesday, 19th September 2007
Venue: Board Room, Buswells Hotel, Molesworth St. Dublin 2 (Opposite Dáil Éireann)
Spokesperson: Ms. Patricia McKenna, Former MEP

Forum on Olympics and Human Rights in China:
Time: 7:00PM-9:30PM
Date: Tuesday, 16 October 2007
Venue: Georgian Suite, Buswells Hotel, Molesworth St. Dublin 2 (Opposite Dáil Éireann)
Speakers: To be announced.

Global Human Right Torch Relay
Time: 1:00-5:00PM
Date: Wednesday 17th October 2007
Starting Venue: Top of Grafton St, where the speeches and singing performances will be held;
Ending Venue: Chinese Embassy, 40 Ailesbury Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
Running route: After the speeches and performances, some athletes and volunteers will carry the Torch and run to the Chinese Embassy, where the whole event will end about 5:00PM
More details: to be announced.

Contact:
Ms. Patricia McKenna, Former MEP
Spokesperson of CIPFG in Ireland
Ph: 087 2427049 , 086 2412206; Email: cipfgie@gmail.com

[Ming]

[size=7]China’s Olympic Promise[/size]
[size=7]Following China's successful bid for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, both the Chinese authorities and
International Olympic Games' officials pledged that the Beijing Olympic Games would be a catalyst for the
improvement of human rights in China.
● "By allowing Beijing to host the Games you will help the development of human rights." Liu Jingmin, Vice
President of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Bid Committee, April 2001
● "It will help promote all economic and social projects and will also benefit the further development of our
human rights cause." Liu Qi, the former Beijing Mayor & the current president of Organizing Committee for
the Beijing Olympic Games, 13 July 2001.
● "We are convinced that the Olympic Games will improve the human rights record in China", Jacques
Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, April 2002[/size]

[size=7]However, the promise have been broken totally ...[/size]

- Amnesty International said...

Amnesty International's latest report finds that several Beijing-based activists continue to face
'house arrest' and tight police surveillance, while those in other parts of China are facing increased
abuse. Award-winning housing rights activist Chen Xiaoming died in Shanghai on 1 July, shortly after
his release from prison, where reports indicate he was tortured in detention.
There is also an ongoing crackdown on the media; with continued imprisonment of journalists and
writers, forced dismissal of media staff, publication closures and pervasive internet censorship.
(http://web.amnesty.org/pages/chn-060807-feature-eng)

- Reporters Without Borders said...
As part of the preparations for the Games, the Chinese government has established an
arsenal of laws and regulations that impose very strict content control on journalists, website
editors and bloggers. There is no guarantee that the Chinese and international public will get
unrestricted and impartial coverage of the Beijing Games.
Forty per cent of the 163 China-based foreign journalists polled by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China
(FCCC) in 2007 said they had experienced some form of interference by the authorities since 1 January. A total of 157
incidents (arrests, surveillance, intimidation of sources, violence or threats) were reported to the FCCC. Asked if China
had kept the promise made in 2001 by Wang Wei of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games to give the foreign
media complete freedom to work, 67 per cent said No. Only 8.6 per cent said Yes.
Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky’s outraged comment about the holding of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow -
“Politically, a grave error; humanly, a despicable act; legally, a crime” - remains valid for 2008.
(http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18483)

- IHLO said...
To date, China has failed to live up to its Olympic promise. Basic workers' rights continue
to be violated and labour activists continue to be imprisoned. A significant number of
labour activists remain in prison for their peaceful actions to defend labour rights. Some
these have been in prison since the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. In fact, ever since
China's Olympic promise to improve human rights, more labour activists have been detained. Some have sentences extending
well past ever the next Olympics in 2012.
(http://www.ihlo.org/prisoners/en/)

[Ming]

"Why should the world reward people who are obviously so bad to their own people, so bad to other people."

—- Actor Richard Gere

“Next year's Olympic Games are a prime opportunity for the world to take a stand. New Zealander's needs to take a lesson from the 1936 Berlin Olympics.”
“The world stood by and allowed those Olympics to take place when the world already knew about Nazi practices and we can't let the same thing happen with China.”

—- New Zealand human rights lawyer Richard MacLeod

"I just want to say this, human rights, violation of human rights and genocide are just words. People don't realize that behind those words is a horror story, beyond anything that Dr. Mangele did during the Holocaust. He was the doctor of death. There is nothing to match what is happening in China, to take living bodies and sell them. As the new Kilgour-Matas report shows, they are financing the army with it. Army doctors are doing it.”

—- Former MP Simma Holt from Vancouver

“The Chinese Communist Party, in the face of the whole world, has not fulfilled its promise to improve the human rights situation and moreover has transformed it into the genocide of its own nation by building enormous factories of violence and lies... As an athlete I could not feel the deep fulfillment and satisfaction of a job well done while standing on the podium, built over the lives of thousands and thousands of people.”

—- Martins Rubenis, Latvian Winter Olympics Bronze Medalist

[Munion]

You do realise that by having Patricia McKenna involved most folks will just think Crazy Lady!!!

Do you honestly think that your campaign will succeed? I'm not against trying something for the sake of it but I mean really, will this work?

[popper]

I don't agree with a boycott - from a sporting point of view - but fair play to McKenna and others for highlighting the fact that they are being held in a totalitarian state that has millions of slave labourers and political prisoners.

[DAOINE]

Almost all Chinese people have no idea that the country is a human rights violator. Unless they have been victims of it which is not unusual with a very corrupt police force. The news is completely censored and bad news is rarely reported unless it is from outside China. Having lived in China for a number of years I can assure that the Chinese Government have no interest in changing or improving. Most Chinese have no idea that the "Tiananmen Massacre" happened. China is a much more harsh place than Ireland or anywhere in the EU. The biggest difference is that in Ireland the government fears the people but in China the people certainly fear the government. For a so-called Communist country well now they say socialist it is extremely class conscious and of course riddled with corruption. I could go on all day with my experiences of corruption. The Chinese people are very hard working though they put up with so much "Red tape" even to do the most simple things. If we boycott the games then it will in long run only damage Chinese peoples percetion of the wider world and allow even more strict control of their lives in the future. The only way to change China is try and force it to change and the Olympics might change the attitude.
Also quoting Richard Gere is sad. He is a friend of former Japanese PM Koizimi who visits the Yasakuni Shrine.
A shrine that commemorates Japans elite military dead in WW2. The shrine holds the remains of some of the most disgusting people to ever grace humanity and are responsible for the deaths of at least 25 million Chinese. Koiszimi has denied these people are guilty of any crimes. The international press rarely reports on this issue and this has always hurt the Chinese and of course the Koreans who also suffered greatly.

[JCSkinner]

I would disagree that most Chinese do not comprehend the nature of their rulers and regime. They know well and live in fear of it. They recall the great leap forward that went backwards and the cultural revolution that eradicated culture.
I concur with the call to boycott the Olympics. It's one of the few ways remaining, now that China makes our clothes and electronic goods, to show our disrespect for their regime.
Because of Tiananmen:
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/2007/06/ ... -blog.html
Because of the hypocritical and autocratic nature of the communist regime:
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/2007/07/ ... abits.html
And because of Tibet:
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/2007/05/ ... tibet.html

[Rebel CNC]

Sadly, I see this being a rather small, lame protest in Dublin unless the protesters could somehow link the Yanks or maybe Israel to the Olympics as well.

[Gimpanzee]

"Why should the world reward people who are obviously so bad to their own people, so bad to other people."

Well if hamster-tastic Hollywoood star Richard Gere is agin' it, so am I. That's it, I'm not going now.

[TheBear]

<Mod>Moved to the Culture & Community forum.</Mod>