In Olympia and Jiamusi
by hakmao, 24 March 2008
Three members of Reporters Without Borders disrupted the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Olympia today.
Three Reporters Without Borders representatives, including secretary-general Robert Ménard, today unfurled a banner showing the Olympic rings transformed into handcuffs[.]
Protesters attempting to block the progress of the torch relay were seized by heavy-handed Greek police.
The torch relay is scheduled to go through Tibet, a plan Free Tibet activist Anne Holmes described as ‘obscene’ in the current circumstances. Liu Weimin from the Chinese embassy appeared on BBC News 24, but all of his turning a blind eyes and invocations of the aspirations of the people [of the world] notwithstanding, there was nothing apart from the usual Stalinist obfuscation. What is the term you use when the mouthpiece of the Chinese military industrial complex asserts that speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the right to talk about human rights? Brass neck.
Elsewhere, a man who helped villagers issue a petition about disputed land last year that declared: “We don’t want the Olympics, we want human rights” has been jailed for 5 years:
A Chinese activist who circulated an open letter titled, “We want human rights, not the Olympics,” was sentenced Monday to five years in prison, a court official said.Court security shocked Yang Chunlin repeatedly with electric batons after the 20-minute hearing when he tried to speak with family members […] Yang had gathered more than 10,000 signatures, mostly from farmers, for the petition that pushed for greater protections for human rights ahead of the Olympics that begin Aug 8.
Monday 24 March 2008 at 19:41
Heavy-handed police/tracksuited goons - are we to expect a similar approach to the keeping of public order when that wretched torch passes through London next month? And what about the collusion with the authorities of Greek television in immediately cutting to a wide-angle shot when the RWB protester unfurled his banner behind the Chinese dignitary? It’s a fucking disgrace that this sort of thing is happening in a European democracy.
Monday 24 March 2008 at 20:39
Some Chomskybot moron has responded that RSF are a CIA front organisation–apparently some fraction of 19% of their funding derives from the National Endowment for Democracy–as if that somehow negates the repression and brutality of the Zhongguo military industrial complex.
To paraphrase Orwell, just because something is reported in the Torygraph, doesn’t mean it’s not true … which funnily enough is actually what one chump tried to argue here a couple of years ago.
Monday 24 March 2008 at 22:16
[Stalinist] Scum Die!!!! Free Tibet!
Tuesday 25 March 2008 at 0:13
Eddie Hitler — the commenter above — he just shows the value of having blog comment facilities he does…
Tuesday 25 March 2008 at 11:17
The most despicable chauvinist and racist scum have slithered out of their swamp to defend the Zhongguo military industrial complex under that youtube clip.