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In China, Rights Activists Use Olympics to Push for Reforms |
| Monday, March 24, 2008 |
BEIJING, March 24 -- Demonstrators denouncing China's record on human rights breached strict security in Ancient Olympia on Monday and disrupted a torch-lighting ceremony that launched the Olympic flame's long journey to Beijing.
Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee and Beijing Communist Party secretary, was speaking at the ceremony in southern Greece when at least two protesters ran behind him, video footage of the event showed. One of the protesters unfurled a black flag that showed handcuffs in place of the five Olympic rings. Later, a Tibetan woman covered in fake blood lay in the center of a nearby road, blocking the path of a torchbearer. Other demonstrators raised posters reading "Free Tibet."
Security officials hurried to smother the protests. Three people from the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders were detained, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, in the Chinese capital, an activist who penned an open letter urging "human rights, not the Olympics," was sentenced Monday to the maximum five years in prison for subverting the power of the state. And a former top official who was jailed over the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests added his name to the voices pushing Beijing to sit down with the Dalai Lama over the recent unrest in Tibet.
Chinese officials, in turn, accused domestic and foreign "separatist" forces of trying to destroy the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games. On Monday afternoon, the government announced the arrests of five Tibetans accused of deliberately setting fire to two shops in Lhasa during last week's deadly protests. The blazes killed nine Han Chinese victims, including an 8-month-old baby, and a Tibetan.
"Their evil purpose is to produce turmoil to interrupt and destroy the 2008 Beijing Olympics, whose theme is peace, and to destroy our country's good stability and unity in order to reach their evil goal of splitting the mother country," said Shan Huimin, a spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Public Security. Shan showed reporters graphic video footage from the riots but took no questions.
China is scrambling to avoid a public relations disaster as critics of its crackdown in Tibet and its human rights record step up their efforts to use the Olympics to push for reform. The drive has unnerved Olympic sponsors and put the International Olympic Committee on the defensive.
"The IOC is engaged in what I call a 'silent diplomacy' with Chinese authorities since day one of the preparations of the games," IOC President Jacques Rogge told the Associated Press from southern Greece, where he attended the flame-lighting ceremony that kicked off the torch relay.
Rogge, who has come under increased fire for not pressuring China to do more about atrocities in Darfur, the Chinese crackdown in Tibet and human rights in general, repeated his view that the IOC was not a political organization. "We are discussing on a daily basis with Chinese authorities, including discussing these issues, while strictly respecting the sovereignty of China in its affairs."
Rogge insisted China's human rights situation has improved since Beijing was awarded the games in 2001, a view many activists here dispute.
Yang Chunlin, 53, an activist laborer with a history of writing dissident essays and calling for political reform, was shocked with electric batons Monday as he was escorted from the Jiamusi City Intermediate People's Court in northeast Heilongjiang province after his sentencing, his sister said in a telephone interview.
"When we all left the courthouse, we shouted at him that he must appeal. He said, 'No need,' and then tried to say more but the police who escorted him prodded him with an electric stick," said Yang Chunping, who was in court with their mother and Yang Chunlin's wife. "I saw sparks, and then he was placed into a police car and driven away."
Yang Chunlin's lawyer said his client, who had faced three to five years, probably received the maximum sentence because he refused to confess and instead maintained his innocence.
"The sentence is very serious," Li Fangping said. "He didn't incite anybody at all. If everyone who speaks freely is accused of subverting state power, then it will be very difficult to guarantee free speech because people won't know what they can say and what they can't."
Government officials have ordered detentions and conducted house-to-house visits warning Chinese dissidents not to cause trouble during the Olympics, but Yang's sister said he was no destructive force. "The law can only rule people's behavior, it cannot rule people's thoughts. My brother didn't commit any crime at all," she said. "He only tried to help farmers get their land back, and he only wants a better China."
Yang, who has been in police custody since July, had collected more than 10,000 signatures for his petition, mostly from farmers. His case is one of several that have angered and embarrassed officials hoping to present a smooth and orderly Olympic Games to 4 billion television viewers, 500,000 foreign tourists and more than 22,000 credentialed journalists.
Officials worry that incidents such as the disruption of the flame-lighting ceremony in Olympia will draw attention away from China's message of economic growth and arrival on the international stage. Advisers to the games have warned that it is China's reaction to such protests -- rather than the protests themselves -- that will garner worldwide attention.
"To have this kind of incident is normal during the Olympic Games. Such a big event will naturally have this kind of risk," said Liu Hailong, professor of mass media at People's University in Beijing. "If Olympic officials handle it according to international standards or conventions, then it will be okay."
The pressure on Beijing has only increased since last week's closely watched protests in Tibet. Government critic Bao Tong, who was jailed for seven years after the 1989 protests, has called on China to sit down for frank discussions with the Dalai Lama, who he called "the only Tibetan leader with the hope of presiding over a reconciliation agreement between Tibetans and Han Chinese," Reuters reported.
Bao, once the top aide to the Communist Party chief who was ousted after opposing the military crackdown in 1989, made his remarks in an e-mail to the news service. "So long as the central [government] sits down for dialogue with the Dalai Lama and shows great wisdom, great decisiveness and great boldness of vision, the Lhasa incident can be handled well," he wrote.
But Shan, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Public Security, showed no sign of outreach from the government. "Actions speak louder than words," she said. "The two cases of arson strongly demonstrate that the events of March 14 were definitely not a peaceful protest or peaceful procession. Instead it's a very serious, violent crime. The Lhasa riots were organized and incited in a dedicated fashion by the Dalai Lama clique and by overseas and domestic Tibetan separatists."
Shan said three Tibetan women deliberately set a fire in a Lhasa clothing shop March 14, fatally burning five women ages 19 to 24. One was a Tibetan from Shigatse, and four were Han Chinese from Sichuan province. A sixth girl, who was Tibetan, escaped, Shan said.
The next day, two Tibetan men broke into a motorcycle shop in Lhasa's Dazi county, deliberately set a fire and then took two natural gas containers from a restaurant next door in order to increase the blaze, Shan said. The shop owner, his wife and 8-month-old son and two repairmen hid on the second floor and died in the fire.
The two men "confessed their crimes, and the cases are still under investigation," Shan said.
*washingtonpost.com |
posted by  1:44 PM |
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