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This cynical torch stunt shames us all, Gordon
Kate Hoey04.04.08
On Sunday our Prime Minister will collude in a propaganda stunt for China which in the future he may have cause to regret. Gordon Brown has agreed to welcome the Beijing Olympic torch personally at Downing Street, surrounding himself with young hopefuls aiming to compete in the London 2012 Games. This participation is utterly unnecessary.
There have been torch relays before in Olympic history: Greece used one in 2004 to mark the Olympics "coming home", and the torch went to various cities including London. But in keeping with the rest of Beijing Olympics' preparation, China has raised the torch relay to a new level. Featuring a cast of thousands of torchbearers and covering more than 85,000 miles - further than ever before - the international relay route is a whirlwind tour of 23 cities across five continents in four months.
The invitation for a city to host a section of an Olympic torch relay goes directly to that city and that nation's national Olympic committee. So it is the GLA and the Mayor who have been managing the operational details of London's relay, not the Government.
Back in 2001, those of us who expressed concerns about the suitability of China to host the Games were told by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that China had signed up to agreements on human rights and free access for journalists to report independently and without barriers anywhere in the runup to 2008. The IOC thought, naively, that because sport was seen as a force for good, the award of the Olympics would help bring about reforms and an end to human rights abuses.
But as this week's Amnesty International report says, "it is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression is occurring not in spite of the Olympics but actually because of the Olympics". All over China, peaceful human rights activists and others who have publicly criticised official government policy have been targeted in the official pre-Olympics "clean-up" in an apparent attempt to portray a "stable" or harmonious image to the world by August. Meanwhile up to two million people have been driven out of their homes to make way for the futuristic stadiums and accommodation for athletes. Many of them have been reduced to total poverty and those who objected faced violence from the police, arrest and in a few cases have been beaten to death.
Jiang Xiaoyu, the vice president of the Beijing organising committee, told the world on 19 March that the torch relay was intended to "convey the message of peace and harmony" and that any attempt to disrupt the events were "against the spirit of the Olympic Games". At the very time he was speaking, hundreds of monks and civilians were being rounded up, arrested, beaten and tortured in Tibet. Many of the injured were too terrified to seek hospital treatment for fear of reprisals.
Mobile phones have been seized and independent camera crews are turned away at the border. The country has effectively been sealed off. Meanwhile, the continued vitriolic responses by the Chinese government, accusing the Dalai Lama of being behind the violence in Tibet, invite ridicule.
The very same torch that Gordon Brown will so proudly hold up at Downing Street will in June be sent through Tibet, in a gross insult to the Tibetan people. The IOC should not allow this to happen - and our own British Olympic Association should call for the route to be changed.
Steven Spielberg's decision in February to pull out as an adviser to the Beijing Games opening ceremony, over China's support for Sudan, was the signal that finally the world is waking up to the fact that the Olympics and its ideals have been hijacked by the Chinese regime for its own propaganda. For the first time since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, a regime is blatantly using sport for its own ends.
This is why all who are appalled at China's humans rights record must show their distaste for the regime by using the torch relay on Sunday to protest peacefully. The protesters may already have one victory, with the reported indecision of the Chinese ambassador, Fu Ying, over whether to carry the torch herself.
Yesterday's jailing of human rights activist Hu Jia for "subversion" is just the latest sign of a brutal regime that believes it is so powerful it can get away with anything.
Just because London is hosting the next Games, this should not mean that our Government refuses publicly to condemn China. For if world leaders keep compromising and allow China not to be held to account for its human rights abuses, the Olympic ideals are denigrated. That is why anyone who genuinely cares about the inspiration and hope sport can bring to the world cannot remain silent.
London is in danger of inheriting a politicised Olympics, greatly tarnished by Beijing. Most who protest peacefully on Sunday will not be calling for a sporting boycott of Beijing but, like me, will want to see diplomats and government ministers stay away from the opening ceremony, an extravagant showpiece with little to do with sport. We also want our athletes, where they feel they wish to do so, to be free to express their views in China.
All of us who believe in justice and freedom can demonstrate peacefully along the route of the torch, raise flags for Tibet and make our voices heard in China.
The latest poll shows that Londoners don't really believe that they will see any noticeable benefit for residents of London 2012. Pictures of Gordon Brown participating in a ceremony for a torch already tainted with the blood of innocent Tibetans will not help. Only by criticising China publicly on Sunday can he show that he understands the true meaning of the Olympic Games.
• Kate Hoey is MP for Vauxhall and a former sports minister.
Reader views (5)
What a disgrace, Chinese heavies guarding the torch. Connie Huq should have handed the torch to the crowd.
- Robert Rune, Bridgend, Wales
Just sent my tickets for the Sugababes back to the mayors office... no amused at the party atmosphere myself.
- Duncan Fraser, Inverness, Scotland
Mr. Brown! You stood up and made us proud, then turned around and Kowtowed! So disappointing. Yes, HH Dalai Lama says the Olympics should go on. Why are you confusing the Torch Relay with that? The so-called "torch of harmony" should not be run through a totally suppressed Tibet, a land with no hope for harmony as things stand; where thousands are currently jailed to silence their protests; where Chinese play charades with the world and hope to run the Olympic torch up (their?) Mt Everest! A travesty. A joke. A shame.
- Lucy Needham, Kathmandu, Nepal
Tibet is not the only bloodstain colouring the Chinese flag. China invaded and occupied part of Kashmir in 1962. It even claims the state of Arunachal Pradesh from India although none of these regions, Tibet included, was ever truly a part of China. Why do they boast about the Great Wall of China and then claim that China extends well beyond this historical boundary against foreign invaders. China also invaded Vietnam in 1979 and still occupies Vietnamese territory.
Whilst bullying India's government into kowtowing to it Beijing, which signed the NPT, gave Pakistan the blueprints for its nuclear bomb and, via N. Korea, missiles to threaten India. Beijing lurks behind the Burmese Junta which imprisons the people of Burma (as in N. Korea's prison state) and is building naval bases there. The Indian Communists are deluded Marxist ideologues playing into China's hands. My CPI(M) relative in Kolkata even has books by disgraced E. German leader Eric Honecker of Stazi fame. Tibet is now a police state.
Although Reuters claim a poll of 500 Indians shows concern over hosting Dalai Lama as it upsets China, most Indians are proud of giving sanctuary to persecuted Tibetans. Hindu India gave sanctuary to Jews fleeing Babylonian exile 2,500 yrs ago and Zoroastrians fleeing Mohammedan persecution in Persia. The Tatas are such Parsees. There is no way India will stop giving sanctuary to the Tibetan refugees and the Govt-in-exile. If we did, the PLA would come to imprison us next!
- Sutapas Bhattacharya, London, UK
I am not really surprised that our government is colluding in such a farce. So it goes on. We all turn a blind eye because the horror is not happening on our doorstep. There is a carnival at Ladbroke Grove to celebrate the torch passing through. So we teach the young people attending there about nothing but frivolity while the Tibetans are being incarcerated and beaten. All that should be happening where China is concerned is that our leaders should be negotiating freedom for Tibet. It's about time the meek of this world were granted freedom from such blatant hypocrisy and unholy terror.
- Catherine Mccarthy, Hanwell, London, England
