"In spite of promises to improve human rights, China continues to account for upwards of 80% of all executions in the world," and on a large scale uses their organs for sale. At this rate, the only world record China is guaranteed to earn at the 2008 games will be for the world's champion of executions.”
Reporters Without Borders expressed similar concerns at the Athens Olympics:
"As the Athens Olympic Games enter their final days and approach the closing ceremony, at which the Olympic flag will be handed over to the mayor of Beijing, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) today awarded China an additional gold medal - one for human rights violations.
Journalists with the foreign media are always viewed with suspicion by the Chinese authorities and are sometimes the target of threats and violence. Police hit an Associated Press photographer and manhandled one of his colleagues from Agence France-Presse on 7 August while they were covering the xenophobic rioting that followed the Asia Cup soccer final in Beijing.
Moreover, the Chinese government has acquired a new system for monitoring mobile phone text messages in real time. This technology allows the authorities to filter messages for key words and identify those sending "reactionary" messages. The public security ministry has already been monitoring the Internet extensively and jamming some foreign radio stations.
The next Olympic Games will open in Beijing four years from now. China is already far from keeping its promises to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), especially its undertakings about the free flow of information. The IOC must do everything possible to get Beijing to respect basic freedoms, or else the Olympic spirit will be badly trampled on as it was already at the Moscow Games in 1980. Dozens of countries boycotted those games and the political police arrested hundreds of dissidents.
After waging a campaign against Beijing’s successful bid to host the next Olympics, Reporters Without Borders has launched a website to rally opinion against the Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorship." (more)
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