Mention "Beijing 2008" and for many groups the phrase is as synonymous with "human rights abuses" as it is with "Olympic Games." The two are now inextricably linked, in a way that wasn't the case six months ago.

This is one victory human rights groups can claim in their Olympic campaigns.


Tide Turning
Earlier this month, Hollywood icon Stephen Spielberg caused waves in Beijing by quitting as artistic advisor to the Olympics in protest over the Chinese regime's support of Sudan's genocide in Darfur.

Actress Uma Thurman just spoke out in praise of Spielberg's move but thinks he should have included more of the Chinese regime's abuses in his list of concerns.

Prince Charles has stated that he won't go to Beijing because of the occupation of Tibet.

Public pressure has forced two National Olympic Committees to back down on gagging their athletes from voicing political opinion at the games.

The Christian Union Party, junior member of the Dutch ruling coalition, is now calling for a boycott of the Olympic opening ceremony as a human rights protest, reported Reuters on Feb. 18.

Eight Nobel Peace laureates, Western politicians, Olympians, and entertainers like Mia Farrow Emma Thompson, Joanna Lumley, singer Angelique Kidjo and British Playwright, Tom Stoppard sent a joint letter to Chinese party leader Hu Jintao on Feb. 12 to add pressure to the Darfur issue.

Reporters Without Borders has been encouraging French and other celebrities to wear it's T-shirt campaign against the lack of press freedoms in China which Beijing promised would accompany the Olympics.

Thousands of politicians, Olympians, local celebrities, academics and human rights defenders have been joining the Global Human Rights Torch Relay, a year-long run through 37 countries across five continents calling for an end to all human abuses in China.

In a recent House of Lords debate, three members were highly critical of China's rights record citing that the regime has "no tradition of deference to human rights."

US Congressmen Adam Schiff and eight of his colleagues sent a letter to Liu Qi, Beijing Olympic Organising Committee (BOCOG) President, expressing their deep concern "about the lack of improvement of the human rights situation in China. Despite explicit promises made by Chinese government officials in 2001, the Chinese government has not taken serious steps to expand basic rights and freedom."

EU Vice President Edward McMillan Scott has been calling for nothing short of an outright boycott of the games since he conducted his investigation into the Chinese regime's practice of harvesting organs from unwilling Falun Gong meditation practitioners.

"Most human beings recognize that China is also the world's worst tyranny. The Olympic Games offered China the chance of reform but this has been replaced by a massive crackdown on all forms of dissent including religious expression," he said.



Supporters of a Global Human Rights Torch march through downtown San Diego as part of the 28th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade. (Wenru Yu/The Epoch Times)
IOC Position
The contention of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), when it awarded China the honors back in 2001, was that the games would be a force of change. IOC President Jaques Rogge told BBC's Hardtalk that he was "convinced that the Olympic Games will improve human rights in China."

IOC Vice-President Canadian Dick Pound said, "The human rights problems remain an issue, but it is more of a challenge and an opportunity for the Olympic movement to make a contribution to some of its own goals—which is to put sport at the service of mankind everywhere and maybe bring about some change."

The Olympic Charter states that sport must be "at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

The IOC now says that there is a widespread misconception "human rights promises" were ever sought by the IOC in the first place, according to a CNN report release a year before the games.


Olympic Bid Campaign
Throughout the Olympic bid campaign, the international human rights community had doggedly lobbied the IOC not to reward communist China for its poor human rights record by allowing the regime to host the Olympic Games.

The week prior to the final vote, the European Parliament passed a resolution saying, "China's disastrous record on human rights makes Beijing an unsuitable venue for the 2008 Olympic Games."

The argument worked in 1993, when China lost the bid for the 2000 games because the Tiananmen Square Massacre was still fresh in the world's mind, but the moral indignation did not hold in 2001.

According to Human Rights Watch, "China's aggressive campaign for those games was accompanied by tightened controls on fundamental freedoms, even as members of the International Olympic Committee and Chinese officials themselves argued that the games would be good for human rights."

The Chinese Communist Party itself tacitly admitted to human rights abuses by promising to improve. "By entrusting the holding of the Olympic Games to Beijing, you will contribute to the development of human rights," said the Chinese Olympic committee at the time.

However, during the final 10 months of the Olympic bid campaign, Beijing's Mayor Liu Qi told a public rally that in preparation for the bid, he would "resolutely smash and crack down on Falun Gong," and clear the city of beggars, the homeless, and prostitutes, as reported by Reuters in January 2001.

Liu Qi subsequently became President of BOCOG, and by all reports, has made good on his promises.

Far from being a positive force for change, human rights advocates claim that things have actually gotten worse in China because of the Olympics.


Olympics 'Endorsing Repression'
At the end of January, Belgium's Olympic committee issued a statement saying, "Not a single participant in the Games will be allowed to give a political opinion at the Olympic venues. Nor could athletes wear any distinctive insignia protesting China's human rights violations."

The United Kingdom and New Zealand soon followed suit, causing storms of protest in their respective countries. Britons were quick to point out the eerie similarity to 1936 when U.K. athletes were obliged to "Heil" Hitler.

Both Olympic Committees have now publicly back-peddled although amended clauses have yet to be made public.

The standard restriction in clause 51.3 of the Olympic Charter refers to: "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."

The New Zealand agreement originally went much further stating that athletes could not "not make statements, demonstrate (whether verbally, or by any act or omission) regarding political, religious or racial matters".

The government intervened and on Feb. 19 Sports Minister Clayton Cosgrove confirmed that the New Zealand Olympic Committee would be recommending the offending clause be brought in line with the Olympic Charter.

Green Party Sports spokesperson Keith Locke, a staunch critic of the clause, was pleased with the about-face.

Mr. Locke said a major reason the Olympics were awarded to Beijing was to spotlight the human rights situation, "and thus help advance the principles of freedom so central to the Olympic movement."

Michael Craig, chair of the Toronto-based China Rights Network, said that muzzling athletes is "in effect, endorsing repression, endorsing human rights abuses, endorsing torture." "Because silence signifies an approval of the Chinese system," he said.

Craig feels that the IOC took on an obligation in deciding to give a country like China the games, a country that promised to improve human rights in order to win the bid.

"Then I think it becomes incumbent upon the IOC to have the courage to challenge...China when they don't come through on the human rights front," said Craig.

"They don't need to become political, but they should at least stand up for themselves."

The controversies have forced other National Olympic Committees to state their positions clearly. So far, the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, and Spain have declared that they will not restrict their athletes in any way beyond the requirements of the Olympic Charter.


IOC Under Pressure to Uphold Olympic Movement
The IOC has failed to take up the human rights challenge with the Chinese regime, say Olympic watchers.
Students for a Free Tibet, a worldwide organization of Tibetans and their supporters, sent an open letter to Rogge in August 2007 expressing their disappointment with the IOC.

"Not only has the IOC failed to secure improvements in human rights in China but it has abetted suppression of dissent by Chinese authorities," says the letter.

Olympic Watch, an international monitoring group, also sent a letter to Rogge in May 2007 calling on the IOC to "immediately hold the Beijing Organizing Committee accountable for the lack of progress on human rights since 2001, when you awarded the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing."

In September 2006, a coalition of human rights organizations that includes Reporters Without Borders and Olympic Watch issued a joint statement to the IOC stating that despite human rights activists' efforts, "the IOC has refused to face the reality in which Beijing 2008 is to take place."

The current IOC leadership may be "either too cynical, or too incompetent, or both, to protect the Olympic ideals and take a clear stance on the continuing human rights abuses in China," it added.

International human rights lawyer and co-author of reports exposing the Chinese regime's practice of organ harvesting, David Matas, says the IOC is abdicating its authority if it leaves "a dispute between the hosting committee and the global human rights community unresolved."

"Organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China, though happening in 2001, was not known then. Now it is known. It is inconceivable that the International Olympic Committee would have awarded the Games to China in 2001 if they accepted then that China was killing innocents in the thousands every year in order to sell their organs for large sums to transplant tourists," Matas said.

"What needs to be done is to ask the International Olympic Committee to exercise that authority."

Additional reporting by Joan Delaney in Victoria, Canada, Martin Croucher in London, U.K.

Top 10 Things You Should Know about the Beijing Olympics and Falun Gong
(6/10/2008 12:32)

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1. China’s Olympic Committee President was found liable for torture
2. To prepare for the Olympics, Chinese security ordered a “strike hard” against Falun Gong.
3. Falun Gong practitioners are being killed in custody faster and more frequently than before.
4. Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners around China have been arrested “in preparation” for the games.
5. Falun Gong practitioners are officially excluded from the Games because of religious belief, in clear violation of the Olympic Charter.
6. Falun Gong has never taken a position on an Olympic boycott.
7. A “clean up” of districts hosting Olympic venues has included the arrest of local residents who practice Falun Gong.
8. Despite ostensibly freer regulations for foreign journalists, Falun Gong remains taboo.
9. Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners will experience the Olympics from inside labor camps, where they are often tortured.
10. Most Chinese are unaware of any of the above because independent information about Falun Gong remains blocked inside China.

(1) China’s Olympic Committee President was found liable for torture
In 2004, a U.S. federal court found that Liu Qi, the man heading Beijing’s Olympic Organizing Committee, was responsible for the torture of Falun Gong adherents during his tenure as Beijing’s mayor from 1999 to 2002. According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, which publicized the case in April 2008:
“In an extensive legal opinion, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco determined in 2004 that Liu Qi was responsible for the illegal detention and torture of two Chinese nationals and a sexual assault against a French woman in China.”
The plaintiffs, who were represented by the Center for Justice and Accountability, presented evidence that as mayor, Liu directed security forces to violently crush Falun Gong. In addition, police under his command subjected the plaintiffs and other Falun Gong adherents in Beijing to severe beatings, sexual abuse, and ‘electric shocks through needles placed in [the] body.’

For more information visit: http://centerforinvestigativereporting.org/node/3625
For a summary of the case and relevant legal documents visit: http://www.cja.org/cases/liuqi.shtml

(2) To prepare for the Olympics, Chinese security ordered a “strike hard” against Falun Gong.
According to Amnesty International, in preparing for the Games, Former Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang issued the following order in the context of “successfully holding the 17th Communist Party Congress [in October 2007] and the Beijing Olympic Games”:
“We must strike hard at hostile forces at home and abroad, such as ethnic separatists… and ‘heretical organizations’ like the Falun Gong."
See: http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Ind...&of=ENG-2S2

(3) Falun Gong practitioners are being killed in custody faster and more frequently than before.
Within the first three months of 2008, the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC) documented six cases of practitioner deaths occurring within merely 16 days of arrest and in some cases, within hours. By comparison, in 2007, it was over the course of the entire year that the same number died within such a short time in custody. In several of the recent cases, family members were able to view the body before its cremation and saw signs of torture, including strangulation marks or bruises from electric shock batons.

One of the most prominent victims was Mr. Yu Zhou, 42, a musician who was arrested with his wife Ms. Xu Na at the end of January on their way home from a performance by his band. Eleven days after their arrest, the authorities notified their family members to come to Qinghe Emergency Center, where they found Yu already dead. He had been in good health before his detention, but the hospital refused to conduct an autopsy. Ms. Xu, who was released in 2006 after serving five years in prison for practicing Falun Gong, remains in custody.

According to The London Times, which reported on Yu’s death:
“[T]here has been lively discussion among music fans on Chinese websites over the fate of the singer Yu Zhou, 42. “Another beautiful soul has left the world,” commented one distraught fan….Yu won a following among young Chinese for his mellow folk ballads. His group, Xiao Juan and Residents from the Valley, released two successful CDs and appeared on the Phoenix television channel.
For more information on the recent surge in deaths in custody, see:
http://www.faluninfo.net/displayAnArticle.asp?ID=9518

For The London Times’ coverage of Yu Zhou’s case, see: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle3779899.ece

(4) Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners around China have been arrested “in preparation” for the games.
Following orders such as Zhou Yongkang’s (see #2 above), Chinese security agencies have been conducting large-scale arrests of Falun Gong adherents throughout China in recent months as authorities step up efforts to “stamp out” the practice in advance of the Olympic Games in August.

Since January, the FDIC has been receiving regular reports from adherents and their families inside China of door-to-door searches and arrests. According to statistics compiled from these reports, there have been at least 2,000 arrests across 29 provinces, major cities, and autonomous regions. In Beijing alone, over 150 arrests are known to have taken place.

See: http://www.faluninfo.net/displayAnArticle.asp?ID=9517
NOTE: A follow-up report with up-to-date statistics and details will be released shortly.

(5) Falun Gong practitioners are officially excluded from the Games because of religious belief, in clear violation of the Olympic Charter.
Throughout 2007, several statements by top officials, as well as an internal document, indicated that Falun Gong adherents from both inside and outside China will be excluded from participation in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as athletes, coaches, journalists or spectators. Such a policy that discriminates on the basis of religious belief contravenes both the Olympic charter as well as the code of ethics signed in Beijing in April 2007.

One official admission of the intent to exclude foreigners who practice Falun Gong from the games was provided by Li Zhanjun, director of the Beijing Olympics media center, in November 2007.

While rejecting allegations that the Chinese authorities intended to limit the entry of Bibles for personal religious use, Li singled out Falun Gong texts as an exception. As reported by the Associated Press: “We don't recognize it [Falun Gong]… So Falun Gong texts, Falun Gong activities in China are forbidden.”

For more information see: http://faluninfo.net/downloads/FDI_Press/F...TSHEET-OLEX.doc

See also: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/08/...jing-Bibles.php

(6) Falun Gong has never taken a position on an Olympic boycott.
As a spiritual practice, Falun Gong in and of itself does not take a stance on issues such as whether or not to boycott the Olympics. Yet, individual adherents are entitled to take their own positions and make statements accordingly. Nevertheless, such views represent the opinion of that particular individual, rather than Falun Gong as a whole.

What the FDIC is concerned about is the escalation of abuses and extrajudicial killings of practitioners ahead of the games, and indeed, because of the games. There is ample evidence, including points presented in this document, that shows how China’s communist leaders are using the Olympic games as a reason to intensify the campaign to ‘eradicate’ Falun Gong.

(7) A “clean up” of districts hosting Olympic venues has included the arrests of local residents who practice Falun Gong.
Between December 2007 and March 2008, at least 16 Falun Gong adherents had been arrested from Chaoyang District alone, which is set to host the beach volleyball and tennis events, and 10 from Shunyi district, the site of the Olympic rowing and kayaking venues. In total, over 156 practitioners in Beijing and at least 1,878 nationwide have been rounded up during this time period.

According to reports received by the FDIC, many of the arrests have followed a common pattern. Officers from the local police station or Public Security Bureau (PSB) branch come to the adherent’s home or workplace, conduct a search for any Falun Gong-related materials, and take the individual into custody at the district detention center. In some cases, family members or co-workers who do not practice Falun Gong have been taken into custody as well.

The systematic nature of the arrests suggests that authorities are using a previously compiled list of local adherents – a common practice of the PSB. According to former PSB agent Hao Fengjun, who currently resides in Australia, authorities in the city of Tianjin, where Hao formerly worked, had a database of 30,000 Falun Gong practitioners’ names.

For a list of 67 adherents detained in Beijing as of March 2008, including the above-mentioned 16, visit: http://www.faluninfo.net/downloads/FDI_Pre...0-%203-12-1.pdf

(8) Despite ostensibly freer regulations for foreign journalists, Falun Gong remains taboo.
The Chinese government issued temporary regulations for foreign journalists in January 2007. The directives, in place until October 2008, reduce travel restrictions and the need for pre-approval of interviews. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), however, in practice “the government continues to interfere with foreign reporters,” particularly regarding taboo topics like Tibet or Falun Gong.

The following is an excerpt from a recent CPJ report illustrating the official obstacles placed before reporters seeking to cover Falun Gong:
Bracing for the 21,500 accredited and 5,000 to 10,000 unaccredited foreign journalists who will descend on Beijing for the Games, China’s Olympic planners have issued police an English phrasebook.

It gives some indication of the welcome that foreign journalists will receive. In a section titled, “How to Stop Illegal News Coverage,” the practice dialogue features a police officer confronting a reporter who tries to cover a story on the outlawed religious group Falun Gong.

“Excuse me, sir. Stop, please,” says the officer politely but firmly, before explaining in impressively advanced English: “It’s beyond the limit of your coverage and illegal. As a foreign reporter in China you should obey China law and do nothing against your status.” “Oh, I see. May I go now?” says the visiting reporter hopefully. “No. Come with us,” the officer is told to reply at this point. “What for?” “To clear up this matter.”
For the original report from which this excerpt is taken and a full discussion of press freedom violations ahead of the Olympic Games, see “Falling Short” at: http://cpj.org/Briefings/2007/Falling_Short/China/10_2.html

(9) Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners will experience the Olympics from inside labor camps, where they are often tortured.
Sentencing without trial to “re-education through labor” camps remains one of the most pre.valent ways in which the Chinese authorities punish people for practicing Falun Gong. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2007 report on human rights in China: “Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in reeducation-through-labor camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher.”

Adherents are usually picked up by police from their home, workplace, or while attempting to distribute leaflets about the practice and the persecution against it. After being held in a detention center, they are sentenced to a labor camp. They are never brought before a judge and most are denied the right to employ a lawyer. According to Amnesty International:
“The decision to assign a person to RTL is taken by the police, without charge or trial. People can be detained for up to three years, which can be extended by a further year when necessary…[I]n the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing police have used abusive detention practices such as RTL to 'clean up' the city.”
Once in a labor camp, Falun Gong adherents are beaten, deprived of sleep, and tortured, including with electric shock batons, in order to force them to recant their faith. In 2006, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture reported that Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent of victims of alleged torture in custody.

For two stories Falun Gong practitioners who had been detained in an RTL, see: Daily Mirror: “Annie Yang reveals Olympic torch guards place her into labour camp”: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/20...89520-20380214/

For information about Bu Dongwei, a Falun Gong practitioner detained in a Beijing labor camp for whose release Amnesty International is campaigning, and to write an appeal letter on his behalf, see: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AS...70522007en.html

(10) Most Chinese are unaware of any of the above because independent information about Falun Gong remains blocked inside China.
For the majority of Chinese people, their only source of information about Falun Gong is the state-run media or government sponsored websites, all of which have been used to vilify Falun Gong and deny rights abuses. Domestic journalists receive specific directives forbidding independent reporting on the topic.

On the internet, Falun Gong and related terms remain among the most highly filtered by the “Great Chinese Firewall.” According to the Committee to Protect Journalists: “A Web search for “Falun Gong,” […] would not draw a blank, but it would yield carefully vetted sites that present the government-approved line.”

Websites such as the FDIC’s, that are run by overseas Falun Gong practitioners and include information about rights abuses, are inaccessible from inside China. So are the sites of independent rights organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Even discussion of the issue over Instant Messenger is prevented by filters built-in when Chinese IM software is downloaded (see below).

The only way to access independent information about Falun Gong from inside China is with a proxy server used to circumvent censorship, a technological luxury that remains out of the reach of most Chinese.

As a result, though they live in China, many Chinese remain oblivious to the nonviolent nature of Falun Gong adherents or to the brutality meted out against them.

For a brief explanation of online censorship in China, see: http://cpj.org/Briefings/2007/Falling_Short/China/9_2.html

For a list of censored words integrated into downloadable IM software (20% of which relate to Falun Gong), see: http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2004/08/the-w...ese-cyberspace/
(6/10/2008 12:32)