We in the west will pay for our complicity with China

Herald UK: HARRY REID - The world's biggest building, designed like a monster dragon, opens tomorrow. Needless to say, it is in China and it is an airport terminal. The new Beijing Airport building is bigger than all Heathrow's terminals - including the new Terminal Five - put together.

There are 300 check-in desks. There are 40 miles of luggage-carrying conveyor belts. The car park has space for 7000 vehicles. The construction incorporates more than 500,000 tonnes of steel. The building houses 64 restaurants. More than 50,000 workers were involved with the project, which was completed within four years. Before too long - certainly by 2011 - the terminal will process 90 million passengers a year. Within days, Beijing will be in the elite league of busiest airports, joining Heathrow, Atlanta and Chicago O'Hare.

And that is just one building. Cascades of statistics point to China's remarkable growth. Over the next decade, it will build 100 new airports. One estimate suggested that, on average, it was completing a new power station every four days.

There is obviously a dark side to these statistics. China is a polluter on a mega-scale. It is the world's biggest consumer of coal, and the biggest importer of illegally logged timber. Precious water is being diverted from outlying areas to Beijing for the forthcoming Olympics. Hydro-power projects threaten the livelihoods of millions of peasants.

Basic human rights are being systematically abused. The Chinese state executes at least 10,000 people a year. Amnesty International can provide a plethora of statistics pointing to the pervasive use of torture by the state, and the widespread detention of dissidents. The Falun Gong religious sect has been brutally repressed.

Despite this, there is courageous dissent. Four years ago I saw a brilliant film by the independent film-maker Li Yang. Called Blind Shaft, shamefully it was shown on very limited release in Britain. Despite being acted by amateurs, it was an unforgettably powerful exposé of the grotesque conditions in the unregulated coalmines of northern China, where thousands die every year.

China has an increasingly prosperous middle class, but they are to be found on the coastal strip, where most of the expansion is concentrated. To the north and the west there are conditions of appalling poverty and degradation. A few years ago, an official of the World Bank told me there would be a civil war in China. It has not happened yet, and at present I'd bet against it, but internal disparities and tensions are growing almost as fast as the economy.

If the Chinese regime found itself in real trouble internally, it might do what precarious governments often do - start expanding aggressively overseas. Apart from the disgraceful occupation of Tibet, China has so far been remarkably restrained in terms of foreign adventurism and military posturing, for such an expansionist economy. Taiwan is a constant danger. If the Chinese make a move there, the US administration - of whatever colour - will respond immediately. And Sino-Japanese relations remain at best acutely strained, a legacy of the Second World War, when the Japanese committed atrocity after atrocity on mainland China. More civilians died in that specific conflict than in any other country.

China is already practising non-military expansion, trawling through Africa and elsewhere for oil and other resources. Notoriously, it is a leading purchaser of Sudanese oil, and the principal supplier of military ordnance to Sudan's government. Darfur stains China as much as it does Sudan.

Yet we in the west cannot take a high moral line on any of this - the growing pollution, the disdain for human rights, the crushing of dissent. We are complicit in so much of it, not least because we continue to rely so heavily on the endless factories of this vast and enigmatic country. We consume Chinese goods because they are cheap; we do not worry about their provenance.

And who designed that dragon-shaped terminal? The British architect Norman Foster. The lead contractor was the British-based construction company Arup.

This summer, hundreds of British sportsmen will travel to China for the Olympics. Their participation cannot be divorced from the efforts of the Chinese regime to showcase the event for its own ends. Of course, the Games will be irredeemably tainted - but will that deter millions of television viewers in Britain, willing on our heroes and heroines for the (very) occasional medal?

If we are to take a moral line of any credibility, we must boycott the Olympics, stop outsourcing our manufacturing to China and refuse to purchase Chinese goods. Some chance. I once told my daughter that her grandchildren will in be in some kind of servitude, most probably economic, to the coming powerhouses of China, India and Brazil. She didn't believe me then, but she is beginning to believe me now.

New book details Chinese spy effort ahead of Olympics

PARIS (AFP) — As athletes train for the summer Olympics in China, a new book claims that the country's vast spy network is gearing up for a different challenge - keeping an eye on journalists and potential troublemakers.

French writer Roger Faligot, author of some 40 intelligence-related books, has penned 'The Chinese Secret Services from Mao to the Olympic Games', due out February 29.

His findings claim that special teams are being formed at the country's embassies abroad "to identify sports journalists ... and to define if they have an 'antagonistic' or 'friendly' attitude in regards to China."

Potential foreign spies who may seek to enter China by posing as journalists or visitors will be subject to special surveillance.

The same goes for human rights activists who could use the event to demonstrate in favour of causes such as Tibet, where China has violently crushed protests against its rule, it says.

That's not to mention the long list of other issues preoccupying Chinese authorities, including the possibility of an Al-Qaeda attack and protests from the Falun Gong spiritual movement. China has outlawed Falun Gong, which combines meditation with Buddhist-inspired teachings.

"The watchword for the Chinese is 'no problems at the Olympics,'" Faligot says.

Faligot, who is fluent in Mandarin, says he spoke with numerous Chinese officials.

According to him, two million Chinese work directly or indirectly for the intelligence services through the state security agency.

In a chapter titled 'China: Gold Medal for Espionage', the author says the director of the group coordinating Olympic security, Qiang Wei, has a 1.3-billion-dollar (885-million-euro) budget.

An Olympic security command centre has been created "in order to assure a response to all risks in real time".

Olympic organisers admitted last year to budget overruns caused by extra expenditure on security at the Games, the biggest international event ever staged in communist China.

Last September, China's then-police chief Zhou Yongkang said that "terrorist" and "extremist" groups posed the biggest threat to the success of the Olympics.

He did not elaborate, but China has previously accused some members of the ethnic Muslim Uighur community in the nation's far western region of Xinjiang of terror-related activities.

In the year leading up to the August 8-24 Games, the Chinese army will have organised 25 exercises on how to respond to crises, including a chemical attack on the subway.

The teams being formed in foreign embassies will work in conjunction with "different Chinese intelligence services under diplomatic cover".

Those intelligence services will include the secretive 610 office, set up in 1999 to target the Falun Gong movement and which operates worldwide.

But the intelligence services won't only be deployed during the Olympics to keep an eye out, Faligot says. They'll also be recruiting among the two million visitors expected for the event.



China 'will make secret checks on backgrounds of Olympic visitors'
By ROB DRAPER and SIMON McGEE - More by this author » Last updated at 23:09pm on 16th February 2008

The Chinese government has been accused of carrying out secret inquiries on the backgrounds of athletes, officials and journalists going to this summer's Olympics – so it can ban anyone who opposes the regime.

Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott claims China's Ministry of Public Security has drawn up a document detailing how people are to be assessed – and listing 43 categories to be kept out.

Any athlete, member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), journalist, sponsor or guest who has been on a peaceful demonstration in support of the independence of Tibet should be excluded, according to the alleged document.

Also allegedly due for checks are representatives of the "host city for the next Olympics", suggesting figures like London 2012 Games chairman Lord Coe and London Mayor Ken Livingstone will be screened for their political views on China.

The Beijing-based Public Security Ministry – responsible for policing 1.3 billion people – allegedly lists what type of people should be barred.

They include members of religious groups and terrorist organisations and sections of the media "who endanger the Olympic Games".

A category entitled "China's enemies" includes the families of people killed in anti-government protests, such as Tiananmen Square, "overseas hostile forces" and "individuals who disturb social stability".

And listed under "separatists" is the Dalai Lama's Government of Tibet in Exile and members of its affiliated organisations as well as "individuals who partake in parades, demonstrations and protest activities with the goal of breaking up nations".

Prince Charles, a long-time supporter of the Dalai Lama, has already said he will not attend the Olympics. But under the alleged criteria he would be on the blacklist.

Journalists attract particular scrutiny, with bans to be extended to "staff of any foreign media hostile to the People's Republic of China" and "staff of media who publish anti-communist articles and those who viciously slander the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government".

The secret checks will also look out for "individuals who form unlawful religious groups".

Mr McMillan-Scott, a long-standing critic of the Chinese regime, said last night that he had been assured the details were accurate and he believed them to be so.

They were passed to him by exiled members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, a philosophical and exercise regime that has been persecuted in China since 1999.

Mr McMillan-Scott said: "There is absolutely no question in my mind that it is a genuine document. The Falun Gong have an incredible network of communications and they penetrate every area of Chinese life.

"This document epitomises the way the Chinese state operates against any form of dissidence, any form of nonconformist religion and any form of opposition to the established order."

Erping Zhang, spokesman for Falun Gong in the USA, added: "The document came from inside the Chinese security bureau.

"Some people who are secret Falun Gong practitioners are in the security bureau. They passed us this information last year and we know it is genuine.

"We feel the Chinese authorities are politicising the Olympic Games. It should be a movement open to all individuals regardless of gender, race, religion or politics."

IOC Director of Communications Giselle Davies said: "We can't comment on this because we do not know the source.

"However, we have every reason to believe that the accreditation procedure will work as it has done in the past.

"We have had assurances from the organisers that the usual procedures will be followed, which would involve only the normal security checks and balances."

Last week, The Mail on Sunday told how British Olympic chiefs were forcing athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's appalling human rights record or face being banned from Beijing.

The controversial clause had been inserted into athletes' contracts for the first time and forbade them making any political comment about countries staging the games.

Just a day later, following an international outcry, the offending clause was dropped from the contract.

A British Olympic Association spokeswoman said last night she was unable to comment about the contents of the list but said: "At the Olympic Games it is standard procedure to carry out security checks on everyone attending, like competitors, IOC members and Association staff."

A London representative of the Chinese government refused to comment.

Cheek still focused on human rights and wrongs

L.A Times: Speedskater who spotlighted Darfur situation at Turin Games remains an outspoken activist, and he's concerned about Olympic movement's response to China's human rights record.
By Philip Hersh, Special to the Times

February 24, 2008
Joey Cheek was shocked yet no longer surprised that a number of countries have tried to stifle what their athletes at this summer's Beijing Olympics say about China.

Cheek has learned quickly that it is one thing for Olympic officials to espouse the humanitarian ideals expressed in the Olympic Charter and another to insist those officials stand behind the ideals to help alleviate a humanitarian crisis.

"I was lauded worldwide as the Olympic ideal for donating my Olympic bonus money to buy sports equipment for kids in Darfur, but when I started speaking out about the political issues in Darfur, I no longer was the Olympic ideal to some people," Cheek said in a telephone conversation last week.

"What does that tell me? If you help kids play, you're OK. If you want to help protect people from being slaughtered, you're not."

It is two years since Cheek used the media forum available when he became a speedskating gold and silver medalist at the Turin Winter Olympics to highlight the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan. He went a step further, giving his $40,000 in U.S. Olympic Committee bonuses for those medals to Right to Play, an organization that seeks to improve kids' lives by promoting health and hope.

During those two years, Cheek, 28, has retired from speedskating and become not only a Princeton undergraduate but an outspoken part of activist groups trying to find a solution for the crisis in Darfur.

He is a co-founder of Team Darfur, an international athletes coalition "committed to raising awareness about and bringing an end to the crisis in Darfur, Sudan." It now includes 215 athletes from 42 countries, several -- including U.S. softball players Jennie Finch and Jessica Mendoza -- expected to compete in Beijing.

Cheek also has joined activists, including actress Mia Farrow, director Steven Spielberg and eight Nobel Peace Prize winners, urging China to pressure Sudan to stop atrocities in Darfur. Sudan is a major Chinese oil supplier, and the Chinese sell Sudan weapons reportedly being used against Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have become refugees since 2003.

The Darfur activists and groups decrying China's repression of dissidents have focused on Beijing's role as Olympic host, saying it is hypocritical for the Olympic Games to take place in a country with such human rights issues.

Team Darfur provides a way for athletes to raise a collective voice, but individual Olympic competitors are being discouraged from speaking.

"We have never said to athletes they are not allowed to give their point of view," IOC spokesperson Emmanuelle Moreau said. "One of our basic principles is freedom of speech. What we do not want is proactive political statements to be made during the Games at Olympic venues."

Cheek is upset about free speech restrictions the Belgian Olympic Committee has placed on athletes and about Britain's attempt to quash all discussion of sensitive issues by its athletes, even if the Brits immediately abandoned that idea after it hit the media.

"It wouldn't make me comfortable about saying what I wanted to say if a reporter asked me about it," Cheek said. "I don't think 100 athletes are going to stand up one after the other and address these issues, but the few that might should have their right to do it protected. I am blown away that this has become an issue in countries that have the same beliefs we do about freedom of speech and religion."

Swimmer Michelle Engelsman, 28, a Team Darfur member who hopes to make a second straight Australian Olympic team, expressed similar dismay about attempts to stifle athletes. Asked via e-mail what she would say should a reporter in Beijing seek her opinion about China's role in Darfur and general attitude toward human rights, Engelsman replied:

"I am against the support of genocide on any level, whether directly or indirectly. Furthermore, those supporting such an atrocity need to be held accountable. I also believe that human rights are not something we have to earn, but rather something that should exist without question."

Another Team Darfur member, 2008 U.S. Olympian Jarrod Shoemaker, 25, plans to discuss only sports in Beijing, where he will compete in triathlon. "Before or after the Olympics, I will talk about the issues and how we best as a world can address these situations," Shoemaker said in an e-mail.

Cheek was bemused by the line Belgium has drawn, saying its athletes could not speak out in "Olympic areas" but were free to do so elsewhere. Belgian Olympic Committee secretary general Guido de Bondt defended that distinction by saying, "China is a large country."

Said Cheek: "We don't have much of a chance to go anywhere else but Olympic areas during the Games."

Cheek understands that U.S. athletes could get blowback for criticizing China on human rights but does not think that should prevent them from speaking out. "We do have major problems in America," he said, "but raising concerns about other places does not mean you are forgetting that."

Cheek is resolutely opposed to the idea of an Olympic boycott as leverage against the Chinese and thankful his own Olympic committee has stood behind his humanitarian efforts. Cheek was USOC sportsman of the year in 2006.

Rights forum plans boycott of Olympics

China Post: By James Donald, Special to The China Post

Speakers from international human rights organizations yesterday strongly denounced what they called "China's evil communist regime" over its alleged human rights abuses. Some participants proposed a boycott of the Beijing Olympiad this August, while others said China's tactics of discrimination have only worsened since it won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics.

Papers and speeches at the two-day forum continued today, with strong wording on China's ruling party and treatment of its citizens. Authors presented papers such as "The Chinese Communist Regime Has Never Changed Its Evil Nature," and "Influence of the Beijing Fascist Regime on Western Democracy and World Safety," in support of boycotting the much-anticipated Olympiad.

Lai Ching-te, lawmaker and president of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG), expressed hope the 2008 Olympics would have the same positive effect on China's government as the Seoul Olympics, claiming South Korea's formerly oppressive and undemocratic regime was given the necessary pressure to make way for positive, multi-lateral political change.

"The Olympics gives us important leverage and a channel to push China to fulfill its promises on improving its human rights conditions," said David Kilgour, former secretary of state for Asia-Pacific Affairs at the U.S. State Department, as he addressed the assembly.

Kilgour commended Taiwan for being "a very good example for China," citing it as a positive democratic system.

He explained that these Olympic Games would provide an opportunity for the country to be exposed to new pressures from the international community, and to reform its practices.

Kilgour agreed with Lai, who is also chairman of the conference, in choosing not to bring up the topic of a boycott, although it was introduced in a short farcical film screened beforehand of an Olympic torch that is passed around a group of the world's human rights organizations, in a marathon bid to boycott the Beijing games.

Along with some emotion-packed descriptions of the developing country -- such as "evil," "devilish" and "terror state" -- frequent references were made to Beijing's attempts to use the event to "paint a false image" of itself, as well as the 1936 Berlin Olympics under Hitler's fascist regime.

In contrast, Kilgour said it was the responsibility of their forum to give a truthful and accurate portrayal of the wrongs done to undeserving people, such as the religious-political organization Falun Gong which indirectly sponsored the event.

Andrew Bartlett, a senator from Queensland, Australia, asked rhetorically, "What price do we put on a human life. What price do we put on freedom?" He meanwhile acknowledged the less-than-perfect record of his own country, whose Parliament's first act was the racist "White Australia Policy."

This policy, according to Bartlett "was directed at keeping people like the Chinese out [of the country]," as he went on to denounce the callous treatment of refugees from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq by the former Howard-government.

Those refugees, seeking safety and sanctuary from oppressive regimes such as the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, Bartlett said, were shipped to the remote Pacific island of Nauru before being sent back to the country they had fled, and forced to fend for themselves.

However, Bartlett argued that "we owe it to those in China who are subjected to these abuses" to put pressure on the Communist Party to make a stand for human rights.

President Chen Shui-bian, although not present at the event, sent a message of support and congratulations to participants for "helping to pursue democracy and human rights for a better world."

Forum examines Beijing's pre-Olympics rights record

Taipei Times: STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Friday, Feb 22, 2008, Page 4

Most people around the world are indifferent toward human-rights abuses, Canadian human-rights attorney David Matas told an international forum in Taipei yesterday.

Even though the public agrees that human-rights violations in China are wrong, "they are not prepared to do anything about it," he said.

Describing indifference as the "biggest obstacle" to combating rights violations, Matas said that "people are indifferent because they do not pay close enough attention to sort out truth from falsehood, the real from the unreal."

He said the best strategies are to arouse awareness of human rights and to enable everyone to distinguish the lies told by any regime in the form of propaganda and cover-ups.

Discounting China's promise to improve its rights record, Paolo Barabesi, a representative of Human Rights Without Frontiers, said there has not been any progress, noting that Beijing has suppressed religion and the development of human rights.

The forum, titled "Human Rights in China and the 2008 Olympics," was organized by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) and the Taiwan Culture Foundation.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator William Lai (賴清德), who also serves as CIPFG Asia president, urged the world to face up to the Chinese government's suppression of human rights and to take measures to prevent the Beijing Games from becoming a repeat of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The Berlin Games were a propaganda tool for Nazi Germany, Lai said, adding that "what the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is going to be is in our hands."

Keep the pressure on Beijing and China

By Kate Hoey

Last Updated: 11:58pm GMT 18/02/2008

Telegraph UK: For those of us who believe that sport should be a force for good in society, last week's stories of drug cheats, Olympic boycotts and greedy football clubs were depressing. Sport should be about participation, inclusion and a uniting of people in friendly competition. It should also be entertaining and enjoyable.

Countdown to the Beijing Olympics

In pics: 10 drug cheats

Despite the trillions of new money going to sport, we still wish to retain the romanticism and idealism associated with athletes like the clean-living amateur Eric Liddell, who refused to take part in the 100 metres at the 1924 Paris Olympics because it was run on a Sunday. He went on to win the gold medal at 400m.

	Sign of the times: police in Beijing

It was precisely because sport was seen as a force for good that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 2008 summer Olympics to Beijing in July 2001. Those of us who expressed concerns then about whether China was a fit country to host the world's largest sporting festival were told that the IOC had signed up to an agreement which promised journalists free access to report independently from anywhere in the country in the run-up to 2008. The British Olympic Association under its then chairman and member of the IOC, Craig Reedie, spoke of how the world of sport would help influence the regime in China and at the very least accelerate the process of bringing about long-term reforms.

Looking back, there was a naivety about some of the statements justifying Beijing, with hard-bitten sports journalists waxing lyrical about how communication and understanding would be improved and that the Olympics would promote peace and tolerance.

Those of us who have visited or stayed in an Olympic village marvel at its multi-national mix enabling athletes from all over the world to form friendships and exchange views. The Chinese will undoubtedly create a wonderful village for the athletes, but they promised a 'secure' Games, and outside the village, this 'security' will involve the continued arrest and removal of 'dissidents' from the area and an even greater clampdown on Chinese journalists. The torture and beatings and the executions may stop for the weeks of the Olympic and Paralympics competitions but that will be all.

Just a few months away from the opening ceremony on Aug 8, it is crystal clear that whatever the fine words from the IOC, absolutely no improvement in human rights for ordinary Chinese has been achieved. Indeed, conditions have worsened for the Tibetan people and those who support the Falun Gong organisation. Just what have the IOC done since 2001 to ensure that their own Olympic charter has been even acknowledged by the Chinese Government? The charter says 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 complacency of the leaders of the IOC is breathtaking, but then why should anyone have thought that they meant what they said about Beijing? After all, the whole paraphernalia of the Olympics is sadly now seen as a brand to be sold to the highest bidder, with priority given to the commercial interests of those who regard China as a crucial market.

If the IOC are not going to defend their own charter, then athletes and sports lovers the world over must do it for them. I am not suggesting every athlete in the British team wears a Free Tibet badge (though that would be nice) but I do think that as adult and intelligent human beings, they must be allowed to express their concerns if they so wish.

Obviously, competitors at that level will have much to concentrate on and, as Michael Johnson said last week, no athlete should be exploited for political reasons. However, that is different from the crass attempt by the British Olympic Association to gag our team from speaking out in any way. Thankfully, Colin Moynihan, the BOA's chairman, went ballistic when he heard and immediately vetoed it.

Between now and August, I hope that every opportunity to confront and challenge the Chinese dictatorship will be taken. The IOC should be demanding that journalists are given free access to Tibet.

This is the real test - without free reporting, China is being given a licence to hide its systematic human-rights abuses. I also fear that independent drug testing throughout China will not have been adhered to.

Edward Macmillan-Scott MEP, Steven Spielberg and Prince Charles have put the Beijing Games in the spotlight. Now we need some more high-profile people to speak out and keep up the pressure.

The Government will make polite noises of protest, but they are terrified of provoking a Chinese boycott of London 2012. So the Prime Minister will shamefully try to avoid meeting the Dalai Lama in London in May.

If sport is to be a force for good, then the Olympics have to be used as an opportunity to highlight all that is wrong about China. Otherwise, let's stop pretending that there is such a thing as the Olympic ideal.

2 million Chinese kicked out of homes for Olympics

EXCLUSIVE SUNDAY Mirror INVESTIGATES Families are driven from their homes for sake of China Olympics Houses razed to make way for £200m stadium and city parks 40,000 jailed and tortured for protesting about losing everything

By Nick Owens 17/02/2008

Chinese Demonstration (SM)

Mirror UK: Gleaming and amazing, China's £200million Olympics stadium is shown to the world as a proud symbol of the country's dramatic change.

But two million people driven from their homes for this summer's Beijing Games could tell a different story... if they were allowed.

A tale of how their lives have been ruined for the sake of their rulers' Olympic dream.

Of how their houses have been torn down with just a month's notice.

And how those who have dared to complain have been tortured and jailed.

More than 40,000 people have been arrested for organising protests at the way lives in China's capital have been destroyed. Many have been treated brutally by police.

And more than 200,000 have had to live on the streets while they seek a new home - in towns and cities miles from their old ones.

But Prime Minister Gordon Brown saw no sign of them on his visit to Beijing last month. Before he arrived police swept them from the streets.

Last night Amnesty International UK protested to the Chinese Embassy in London over the treatment of citizens such as Ye Guozhu, evicted with his wife and son.

He was told their home was to be razed to make way for a park to beautify the capital for the Games. There was no offer of compensation and no advice on where they could live. Ye, 38, began planning a 10,000-strong protest.

When the police learned of the plan, Ye was arrested and beaten unconscious. He woke up in a grubby cell.

When Ye refused to admit he was guilty of stirring unrest, he was beaten and tortured with electric batons, then bound to a chair for 23 hours a day. He finally "confessed" and was jailed for four years.

Ye's 17-year-old son, Ye Mingjun, said: "We have filed appeals against his sentence but the court always refuses to accept the case as they say my father must sign the papers in person. But he can't - he is in jail and we have no contact with him."

Six months ago, 200 men and women due to be evicted for the Games chained themselves to their homes. All were sent to "labour re-education camps" for five weeks.

The scandal of China's displaced millions is just one of many human rights failures in a country likely to be the world's biggest economy by 2020.

Last month the Sunday Mirror revealed how the one-child policy was leading to forced sterilisations, with children being sold by traffickers and parents who dared to break the rule being beaten.

And last week movie director Steven Spielberg quit as the Games' artistic director in protest at China's failure to act over the brutality in Darfur, Sudan - whose leaders it supports. China also carries out more executions than any other country - more than 7,000 a year.

But the story of Chinese citizens losing their homes has remained largely unheard as the government tries to silence dissent.

Three people are reported to have died campaigning for justice - but experts say the number is likely to be far higher.

Amnesty International UK campaigns director Tim Hancock said: "China promised that hosting the Olympics would improve human rights.

"But people have lost their homes and their livelihoods to make way for Olympic venues. Those who complain have lost their liberty too."

Beijing 2008

Protester was beaten unconscious and tortured with electric baton

200 who chained themselves to homes were sent to labour camp

Thousands left with nowhere to go have to live on the streets

Gordon Brown didn't see them - they were rounded up in advance

'Shocking truth was hidden from Brown'

'They are hosting an event to promote peace and people are being killed for their organs'

Guardina UK: European politicians are expressing their concern about China's appalling human-rights record ahead of the Beijing Olympics
Will Buckley
February 17, 2008 12:00 AM

On 1 January this year Torsten Trey, chief executive director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, sent a letter to, among others, Steven Spielberg and George W Bush. He wrote: 'It is reasonable to say that in China organs are removed from executed prisoners as well as from living, non-consenting donors, in particular from practitioners of the peaceful meditation movement Falun Gong. As medical doctors, we are extremely concerned about these practices.'

On Tuesday, at a meeting in London, European Parliament vice-president Edward McMillan-Scott expanded on those concerns. 'They are hosting a sporting event intended to promote peace and at the same time people are being killed for their organs,' said Trey. 'It is outrageous. Once you are a prisoner of conscience you are outlawed and lose any rights. You are just a body mass.'

Later that evening Spielberg resigned as artistic director for the Beijing Olympics. There was no connection between the two events - Spielberg, after all, cited China's failure to put pressure on Sudan to ease the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, not transplant trading, as the reason for his decision - other than that the staging of the Olympics in Beijing means that China will be examined more closely and more critically than ever before.

There are plenty of areas of concern. Also speaking on Tuesday was Annie Yang. 'On 1 March 2005, without any legal procedure, I was arrested at home and sentenced to two years in a Chinese labour camp,' she said. This was for being a practitioner of Falun Gong, an organisation that is part Taoist, part Buddhist, and that flourished in the wake of communism before being banned as 'an evil cult' in 1999.

In an effort to make Yang renounce her beliefs, she was forced to survive on 500ml of water a day and half a slice of Chinese bread. She was also tortured. 'They made you sit with your knees closed, your feet closed, your back very straight and your hands on your knees for 20 hours without closing your eyes. No one dared look at me. Only this one woman waved at me and she has now been tortured to death.'

Yang, an antiques dealer, recanted and four months later was asked by the authorities if she wanted to be a spy in London. She declined the offer.

Anne Holmes, from the Free Tibet campaign, said that 'silence is the cost of doing business in China'. Silence, in particular, about what is happening in Tibet. 'There are some monks who must be protected and others who are invisible,' she said, comparing the country to Burma. China's influence is so great over Tibet and around the world, she says, that 'Belgium no longer welcomes the Dalai Lama'.

China, in contrast, welcomes transplant tourists - it is alleged that 40,000 unexplained operations have been conducted in recent years. Also present on Tuesday was Professor Tom Treasure, a noted heart-transplant surgeon, who wrote an essay last year for the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine entitled 'The Falun Gong, organ transplantation, the holocaust and ourselves'. In this he noted that waiting times for such operations in China were a mere one to two weeks and the cost under a tenth of what is charged in the United States. He also drew attention to the fact that, on being incarcerated, members of Falun Gong are blood-tested. This is unlikely to be for their own good, but is most helpful if you are looking for a blood-group match for organ donation.

As McMillan-Scott pointed out: 'What makes it even more ghoulish is that the Falun Gong are regarded as good quarry because they neither smoke nor drink.' Transplanting the organs of executed criminals is one thing, but using the organs of the living one hoped belonged in science fiction.

McMillan-Scott has long campaigned against human-rights abuses in China. He last visited the country in May 2006 and 'all the reformists I had contact with have been arrested, and at least three of them tortured'. Last August he talked from the same meeting room in which we were sitting to eco-dissident Hu Jia in Beijing by live phone link. On 29 January Hu Jia was convicted of subversion.

'There are 1.3 billion Chinese, most of whom are desperately unhappy living under a corrupt, arbitrary and paranoid regime which is dangerous to them,' he says. 'It is a terror state.' Particularly if you are a practitioner of Falun Gong. 'They have been subjected to systematic repression,' says McMillan-Scott. 'Falun Gong are to the Chinese what the Jews were to the Nazis. And that's an understatement.'

Perhaps. One way in which they are being treated worse is that they are prohibited from competing in the Games. Hitler, in contrast, allowed one half-Jewish fencer to represent Germany and excluded the rest. Helene Mayer won silver in the individual foil.

Comparisons with Berlin have seen Beijing labelled the Genocide Games. This term is somewhat melodramatic, although it does remind one of Chairman Mao's massacre of 70 million of his citizens during the Cultural Revolution. It is a reminder that worse things happen behind closed doors than partially open ones and, grim and nasty as life is in China, it may be less grim and nasty than it was. In part, this is because of the Olympic Games. Playing host means you are open to scrutiny and Tibet, Darfur and transplant tourism are subjects up for discussion.

Limited aims may be achievable and last year the number of transplants decreased considerably following the passage of the Human Organ Transportation Act.

There is, however, only limited leverage that can be exerted because the total boycott the admirable McMillan-Scott demands is just not going to happen. This is because the Olympic Games, like US vice-president Dick Cheney, are more about commerce than politics. The defining modern Games, after all, came in 1996 when they shared a home with Coca-Cola. Once the sponsors take over, they become indelibly corporate. Spielberg and a few others excepted, the capitalist West will flock to Beijing to do what it always does - shift product.

China 'will make secret checks on backgrounds of Olympic visitors'

By ROB DRAPER and SIMON McGEE - More by this author » Last updated at 23:09pm on 16th February 2008

Daily Mail UK: The Chinese government has been accused of carrying out secret inquiries on the backgrounds of athletes, officials and journalists going to this summer's Olympics – so it can ban anyone who opposes the regime.

Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott claims China's Ministry of Public Security has drawn up a document detailing how people are to be assessed – and listing 43 categories to be kept out.

Any athlete, member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), journalist, sponsor or guest who has been on a peaceful demonstration in support of the independence of Tibet should be excluded, according to the alleged document.

Also allegedly due for checks are representatives of the "host city for the next Olympics", suggesting figures like London 2012 Games chairman Lord Coe and London Mayor Ken Livingstone will be screened for their political views on China.

The Beijing-based Public Security Ministry – responsible for policing 1.3 billion people – allegedly lists what type of people should be barred.

They include members of religious groups and terrorist organisations and sections of the media "who endanger the Olympic Games".

A category entitled "China's enemies" includes the families of people killed in anti-government protests, such as Tiananmen Square, "overseas hostile forces" and "individuals who disturb social stability".

And listed under "separatists" is the Dalai Lama's Government of Tibet in Exile and members of its affiliated organisations as well as "individuals who partake in parades, demonstrations and protest activities with the goal of breaking up nations".

Prince Charles, a long-time supporter of the Dalai Lama, has already said he will not attend the Olympics. But under the alleged criteria he would be on the blacklist.

Journalists attract particular scrutiny, with bans to be extended to "staff of any foreign media hostile to the People's Republic of China" and "staff of media who publish anti-communist articles and those who viciously slander the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government".

The secret checks will also look out for "individuals who form unlawful religious groups".

Mr McMillan-Scott, a long-standing critic of the Chinese regime, said last night that he had been assured the details were accurate and he believed them to be so.

They were passed to him by exiled members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, a philosophical and exercise regime that has been persecuted in China since 1999.

Mr McMillan-Scott said: "There is absolutely no question in my mind that it is a genuine document. The Falun Gong have an incredible network of communications and they penetrate every area of Chinese life.

"This document epitomises the way the Chinese state operates against any form of dissidence, any form of nonconformist religion and any form of opposition to the established order."

Erping Zhang, spokesman for Falun Gong in the USA, added: "The document came from inside the Chinese security bureau.

"Some people who are secret Falun Gong practitioners are in the security bureau. They passed us this information last year and we know it is genuine.

"We feel the Chinese authorities are politicising the Olympic Games. It should be a movement open to all individuals regardless of gender, race, religion or politics."

IOC Director of Communications Giselle Davies said: "We can't comment on this because we do not know the source.

"However, we have every reason to believe that the accreditation procedure will work as it has done in the past.

"We have had assurances from the organisers that the usual procedures will be followed, which would involve only the normal security checks and balances."

Last week, The Mail on Sunday told how British Olympic chiefs were forcing athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's appalling human rights record or face being banned from Beijing.

The controversial clause had been inserted into athletes' contracts for the first time and forbade them making any political comment about countries staging the games.

Just a day later, following an international outcry, the offending clause was dropped from the contract.

A British Olympic Association spokeswoman said last night she was unable to comment about the contents of the list but said: "At the Olympic Games it is standard procedure to carry out security checks on everyone attending, like competitors, IOC members and Association staff."

A London representative of the Chinese government refused to comment.

China mounts dissident assault before Games

China mounts dissident assault before Games

By David Eimer in Beijing
Last Updated: 11:59pm GMT 16/02/2008

Telegraph.uk: China has been accused of committing new human rights abuses ahead of this August's Beijing Olympics, while spending vast amounts on hi-tech surveillance and security systems.

Hu Jia, a human rights campaigner with his wife Zeng Jinyan
Arrested: Campaigner Hu Jian with his wife Zeng Jinyan. Their baby is also under house arrest

The crackdown is making a mockery of China's promise to the International Olympic Committee in 2001 that it would improve its dismal human rights record and allow greater media freedom if it were allowed to host the Games.

"The human rights situation in China has worsened over the past six months," said Sharon Hom, the executive director of the US-based organisation Human Rights in China. "We're seeing increased restrictions on freedom of expression and the detention and harassment of human rights activists."

Despite the shiny new stadiums that now dot Beijing's smoggy skyline, the most lasting legacy of this year's Olympics may well be the state-of the-art surveillance systems the authorities have installed, supposedly to counter any terrorist threat. Many, though, believe the monitoring equipment will be used to track people suspected of opposing the Communist regime.

Criticism of China's failure to act on its promise to cease human rights abuses was stepped up this week, following the decision of Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood film director, to resign from his role as an artistic adviser for the Games' opening and closing ceremonies. Mr Spielberg pulled out accusing the Chinese of doing too little to stop the slaughter of civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan, where Beijing enjoys diplomatic influence thanks to its trade ties. Other celebrities, such as the musician Quincy Jones, are now said to be re-considering their involvement in the Games.
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Bizarrely, among the activists now under house arrest is a two-month-old baby girl, who is believed to be China's youngest political prisoner.

Her father, Hu Jia, a campaigner for the rights of Aids patients, and a blogger on land and environmental abuses, was charged at the end of January with "inciting subversion of state power", a catch-all charge frequently used against dissidents. His wife Zeng Jinyan, together with her mother and daughter, are all under house arrest in Beijing.

Mr Hu was a high-profile supporter of Yang Chunlin, a factory worker arrested last July after circulating an online petition calling for "human rights, not the Olympics".

Mr Hu also helped publicise the cases of Chen Guangcheng, a blind civil rights activist who has been under house arrest in eastern Shandong Province for the past four months for exposing a policy of forced abortions for people who break China's rigid one-child policy, and fellow blogger Lu Gengsong, who is currently on trial, also for "inciting subversion of state power".

The round-up of activists and tighter censorship of the domestic press and the internet, especially video-sharing websites, are part of a huge campaign by the authorities to ensure protesters do not disrupt the Olympics. With banned groups such as the Falun Gong, a spiritual organisation regarded as a cult by the Chinese leadership, and Free Tibet campaigners expected to mount protests both in the run-up to and during the Games, the authorities are also planning to flood Beijing with police in an effort to quell dissent.

Scores of plain clothes police officers already mingle with tourists in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. But the authorities now see sophisticated surveillance systems as the most effective way of combating public protests. With 265,000 cameras across the city, Beijing is already the CCTV capital of China. Now, thousands more are being installed, with the city spending a reported 300 million yuan (£21.2?million) on boosting its security technology ahead of the Games.

"After the Olympic Games, there's going to be a massively improved infrastructure of surveillance and security systems," Miss Hom told The Sunday Telegraph.

"All the subways, roads and airports are being equipped with cameras. The ability of the authorities to control and crack down on dissident action and large crowds will be vastly enhanced."

In a sign of how seriously Beijing is taking the threat to the Olympics from protesters, it was announced last week that Xi Jinping, the rising star of the Chinese government, will take charge of preparations. Widely tipped as the successor to President Hu Jintao when he retires in 2012, Mr Xi, 54, will be in charge of the massive security operation, while trying to dispel concerns over human rights abuses and air pollution.

Free Speech the Loser at 2008 Beijing Olympics

Scoop NZ - Friday, 15 February 2008, 9:23 am

Press Release: CIPFG

Free Speech the Loser at 2008 Beijing Olympics

CIPFG-NZ calls for the New Zealand Olympic Committee to remove the clause from its contract with New Zealand Olympic team members that requires athletes to “not make statements or demonstrations (whether verbally in writing or by any act or omission) regarding political, religious or racial matters”.

In its current form, the contract forbids New Zealand athletes from making any political comment while in Beijing and denies them a fundamental human right guaranteed to them under our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Freedom of speech should never be sacrificed in order to appease the Chinese Communist Party, a regime with an appalling human rights record. The Chinese Communist Party stated in 2001 that by being awarded the right to host the 2008 Olympics, it would help it improve its human rights record. To sacrifice a fundamental freedom is not the way to encourage the Chinese Communist Party to improve its human rights record, it merely emboldens them to continue with violating the human rights of their own citizens and the rights of others.

CIPFG NZ does not consider that this contractual clause is realistic or can be justified by appealing to the potentially adverse consequences of a New Zealand athlete exercising freedom of speech in Beijing. If a New Zealand athlete cannot exercise freedom of speech in Beijing then we should not be going there. It is not freedom of speech that should sacrifice itself to a communist regime. If the Chinese Communist Party wants to be part of the international community then it needs to accommodate itself to international human rights instruments. If it is unwilling to do that then the argument for a boycott is unassailable.

This country sent at least two generations overseas to fight in world wars to defend the right to freedom of speech and other rights and freedoms threatened by totalitarian regimes. We should not now be deprived of something that we were once prepared to die for.

Carole Curtis (Barrister and Solicitor)
Spokesperson for CIPFG-NZ

--

Other CIPFG members in New Zealand

Dr Cathy Casey (Auckland City Councillor)
Mr Barry Wilson (Barrister and Solicitor) President of Auckland Council for Civil Liberties
Mr Richard McLeod (Barrister and Solicitor)
Mr Heval Hylan (Barrister and Solicitor)
Mr Naing Ko Ko (Burmese Pro-democracy advocate)

Background of CIPFG

The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) was formed in April 2006 and consists of over 350 individuals and organizations from the international community; including government officials, lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and human rights defenders. CIPFG purpose is to investigate both the persecution of Falun Gong and allegations of the harvesting of organs from live Falun Gong practitioners in China. It is calling for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong; practitioners and their supporters in China, and also calling for an independent third party investigation into allegations of organ harvesting in China.

Spielberg has taken a stand. We must too

by Johann Hari:

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Independent.co.uk Web

Independent UK: Thursday, 14 February 2008

Steven Spielberg has finally decided he does not want to be part of a holocaust stamped "Made in China". It's an overdue decision – but one that could now begin an Olympic chain reaction to save the starved survivors in Darfur.

Many people will react to this news by asking – what does China have to do with an African genocide unfolding thousands of miles away from its mainland anyway? The answer is stark. China pays for the genocide. China arms the genocide. China obstructs all attempts to stop the genocide. Indeed, the genocidal Sudanese dictatorship is so enmeshed with the Chinese Communist dictatorship that it should be rebranded as Chudan – a pooled government with pooled responsibility.

When I stood last summer on the borders of Darfur, the hacked and broken people I met were victims of Chudan. Their catastrophe began in 2004, when the local Muslim population of Darfur finally grew sick of being neglected and ignored by the oil-rich National Islamic Front government in Khartoum. A few rebel groups began to rise up – and Khartoum reacted with deranged violence. They sent the Arab Janjaweed – "men on horseback" – to slay the uppity black population, so they could never shout out again.

Osman Ibrahim was one of the lucky ones. He's my age – 29 – and when we met, he was running for his life with his wife and four children. One morning a month before, Osman had been tending his crops in his village 30 miles away, when he heard the sound every black Darfuri dreads. It was the whirr of the Sudanese military's helicopters, followed by the approaching horses and machine-gun fire of the Janjaweed. "The helicopters bombed my house," Osman said, "and the Janjaweed started to kill everyone in the village."

He gathered his children and ran. If they had stayed, the Human Rights Watch reports suggest, his wife and children would have been gang-raped, and then they would have all been killed. Some 450,000 people like them have died so far, with more than 2.5 million more on the run.

The helicopter that blew up Osman's village, and the AK-47s that were used to slaughter his friends, were provided and paid for by China. Why? One word: oil. Since 1993, China has been scouring the earth for the few fossil fuels not seized and burned by Europe and America, and it found the friendliest pool of petrol in Sudan. They have ploughed $10bn of capital investment into Sudan's oilfields, and they snaffle 60 per cent of Sudan's petrol: more than 400,000 barrels a day.

What does Sudan get in return? Enough cash to pay for the slaughter – but that's only for starters. Since 1996, China has been Sudan's main supplier of weapons. On the international stage, China covers Sudan's back. Since the genocide began, the Chinese have been systematically obstructing any attempts at the UN to protect Darfur's civilians. China's special envoy, Liu Guijin, visited Darfur and declared, "I didn't see a desperate scenario of people dying of hunger." No, he said – he simply saw people "grateful" for China's "contribution".

Then the threats to disrupt the Olympics came – and they began to shift their tone. It was reported that China voted for a UN resolution authorising a force of 22,500 peacekeepers – but this was mere Sino-spin. In reality, they announced they would only vote for the UN resolution provided a clause was added. The UN must "invite the consent" of the genocidal regime in Khartoum before UN troops could be dispatched, they insisted. Khartoum has predictably refused to consent – so the peacekeeping mission seems to have died in its crib.

Yet if China threatened to turn off the tap on Sudan's economy, arms and international support, the dictatorship would almost certainly wind down the genocide rather than face implosion.

So can we make it happen? It's notoriously hard to pressure the Chinese dictatorship. They keep their population almost totally ignorant about Darfur, hidden away behind the Great Firewall of China – so internal anger on this issue is almost non-existent. That's why the Beijing Olympics are remarkably serendipitous, providing a rare pressure-point for the world's worried citizens.

Enter (and exit) Spielberg. He is a hefty international symbol, one the Chinese dictators cannot shrug off. But alone, he is nothing like enough. Luckily, for the Chinese coming-out party to go well, they need the guests to stick to the dress-code and the strict etiquette they lay down. All moral people should refuse to play along – not for symbolism, but because each pint of shame changes China's calculations. We will succeed in stopping the genocide when the Chinese dictatorship is more frightened of having its $50bn party ruined than of losing 400,000 barrels of Sudanese oil a day.

The best people to help us achieve this are our athletes. Before they are sportsmen, they are men. Before they are sportswomen, they are women. They have a responsibility to other men and women who are being raped and butchered, just for being black. If we learned anything from the 20th century, it is that "I was told to say nothing" is the weakest excuse of all.

So let them pledge to unfurl Darfuri flags from their podiums if they win. Let them promise to hold up pictures of burned Darfuri children. Let them talk about Darfur at every Olympic press conference. The Chinese Communists know they cannot black out every image: they will begin to panic.

Obscenely, the British Olympic Association (BOA) has tried to do the Communist Party's work for it. In the past week, it has attempted to ban all Olympic athletes competing under the Union Jack from even mentioning this holocaust, inserting a "gagging clause" about "politically sensitive subjects" into their contracts.

So far, only one outstanding athlete has refused to shut up about Darfur: the badminton player Richard Vaughan. More need to speak out, today. You can ask the chief executives of the BOA why they are trying to stop them at colin.moynihan@boa.org.uk and simon.clegg@boa.org.uk.

We can also pressure the advertisers. The Chinese are raking in tens of billions from European and American corporations desperate to be associated with the Olympics. The human rights group Dream For Darfur approached the major ones – Coca-Cola, Johnson and Johnson, Panasonic, Volkswagen and more – to ask them simply to speak out on Darfur. They refused. The campaigners called the report: "And now – not a word from our sponsors". If China thought they would lose this revenue, they could be panicked even more.

The first genocide of the 21st century is passing into the night, and the trail of blood runs right back to Beijing. The only question now is – do we want to throw an Olympic party slipping and sliding in the slaughter, or do we want to use this moment to protect Osman and his terrorised countrymen?

j.hari@independent.co.uk

Spielberg boycotts Beijing Olympics

Times: The Games will put China's foreign policies under the spotlight as never before

Congratulations to Steven Spielberg, and congratulations to 120 US congressmen and the Nobel prizewinners, sportsmen and women and entertainers who in many countries and cities this week combined to call China's neglect of its responsibilities in Sudan to the world's attention. The decision of one of the world's most celebrated film directors to end his artistic involvement in the Beijing Olympics will not derail the Games, nor detract from the pride of ordinary Chinese people in hosting them, nor prevent athletes who have trained long and hard from competing in them. But the moral force of his rebuke will irritate and embarrass the Chinese Government. In so doing, it will force Beijing to address the reality of being a global player.

Spielberg made two main points in his dignified and moving message to China's leaders - that Beijing's refusal to use its “unique influence” to stop Sudan's “unspeakable crimes against humanity” was in conflict with the Olympic “ideal of brotherhood”; and, more broadly, that China must recognise that “with growing influence come growing responsibilities”. His gesture was made for the sake of the wretched of Darfur, far from China's shores but well within the reach of Chinese diplomacy. The stand he has taken is also in the interest of China itself. There is little point in China spending $40 billion on celebrating its return to prominence on the world stage if it will not shoulder the burdens of greatness.

These protests do no more than hold China to its word. Back in 2001, China's Olympic Committee declared that to award Beijing the 2008 Games would “help the development of human rights”. In making that pledge, China's leaders were aware of international objections. The intent was to deflect criticisms: of the party's refusal to acknowledge, much less atone for, the Tiananmen massacre; of the religious, cultural and economic repression of Tibetans; of the plight of political prisoners in China's vast lao gai labour camps; of the persecution of religious groups such as the Falun Gong; of restrictions on the media and free expression; of China's threatening stance toward Taiwan. That is already a long list, and China's conduct on all counts will come under intense scrutiny in this Olympic year. That is as it should be, which is why it was not only craven but inappropriate for the British Olympic Association to have tried to insert a gagging order into athletes' contracts. But China's leaders appear still less prepared for critical scrutiny of its broader international responsibilities.

China's first instinct has been to complain that sport is being politicised. And so it is: Beijing throughout viewed these Games through the lens of politics. They are a way to promote China and also to shore up the legitimacy of the regime, now that it can no longer rely on the power of ideology to buttress its systems of control. That is why a dissident is facing trial for subversion for nothing more than saying that human rights are more important than the Olympics; and that is the reason for China's fierce crackdown on the media. “Welcome and shut up” cannot be the Olympic slogan. Spielberg has given China a foretaste of the life to come, and not just as hosts to the Olympics this summer. The Middle Kingdom cannot exert its influence so forcefully beyond its borders without acknowledging its impact on the world. With his own individual protest, Spielberg has asked the Chinese State one of the most penetrating questions of our age: what will China use its power for?

Un-Olympian Effort

China released two political prisoners. More must follow.
Washington Post: Sunday, February 10, 2008; Page B06

JOURNALISTS ACROSS Hong Kong and Guangzhou are celebrating. Ching Cheong and Yu Huafeng, their local heroes, were at last released in the past few days after years in prison on trumped-up charges. China was right to release these two, but officials have much further to go before fulfilling the human rights commitments they made upon being awarded the 2008 Olympics.

Both men were freed around the Chinese New Year, a holiday akin to Christmas in the West, when everyone takes off from work and families get together for big, traditional meals. The reason for their early releases -- years before their sentences were originally scheduled to end -- is unclear. Family and supporters had been heavily lobbying for their freedom, particularly around holidays when they thought the government might be more amenable. The concession seems to have been intended to cultivate some goodwill among critics in Hong Kong and southern China -- in particular, the many journalists who had taken up these men's causes. Hong Kong journalists enjoy more media freedoms than their mainland counterparts, and Mr. Yu's mainland paper has a reputation for defying state censors.

Unfortunately, any goodwill gleaned from the release of these men is canceled out by Beijing's inhumane treatment of many other dissidents in recent weeks. Within 24 hours of Mr. Ching's arrival home in Hong Kong, another brave journalist and outspoken critic of government corruption was sentenced to four years in prison for subverting the state. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Lu Gengsong joins at least 25 other journalists who remain behind bars for lawfully doing their jobs, as well as countless other human rights activists who have been arrested on bogus charges.

The best way China can build up goodwill -- and honor the promises it made before the Olympics -- would be to release all these political prisoners. If the Communist regime won't do that to build goodwill, perhaps they will do so to avoid embarrassment. We urge President Bush and other world leaders to demand the release of dissidents as a condition of their attendance in Beijing in August.

British athletes are forced to sign no criticism contracts

Daily Mail. UK: Britain kow tows to China as athletes are forced to sign no criticism contracts
By ROB DRAPER and DANIEL KING - More by this author » Last updated at 13:07pm on 10th February 2008

Paula Radcliffe

Gagged: Marathon runner Paula Radcliffe is likely to be one of those affected by the ban
British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's appalling human rights record – or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.

The move – which raises the spectre of the order given to the England football team to give a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1938 – immediately provoked a storm of protest.

The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes' contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.

It is contained in a 32-page document that will be presented to all those who reach the qualifying standard and are chosen for the team.

From the moment they sign up, the competitors – likely to include the Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips and world record holder Paula Radcliffe – will be effectively gagged from commenting on China's politics, human rights abuses or illegal occupation of Tibet.

Prince Charles has already let it be known that he will not be going to China, even if he is invited by Games organisers.

His views on the Communist dictatorship are well known, after this newspaper revealed how he described China's leaders as “appalling old waxworks” in a journal written after he attended the handover of Hong Kong. The Prince is also a long-time supporter of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader.

Yesterday the British Olympic Association (BOA) confirmed to The Mail on Sunday that any athlete who refuses to sign the agreements will not be allowed to travel to Beijing.

Read more...

* Shameful picture of England squad giving Nazi salute still haunts British sport. Why, 70 years later, do we still suck up to dictators?

Should a competitor agree to the clause but then speak their mind about China, they will be put on the next plane home.

The clause, in section 4 of the contract, simply states: “[Athletes] are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.”

It then refers competitors to Section 51 of the International Olympic Committee charter, which “provides for no kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other areas”.

Zara Phillips and Toytown

Contention: the Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips stands to be among the athletes who will be forced to sign the gagging order

The BOA took the decision even though other countries – including the United States, Canada, Finland, and Australia – have pledged that their athletes would be free to speak about any issue concerning China.

To date, only New Zealand and Belgium have banned their athletes from giving political opinions while competing at the Games.

Simon Clegg, the BOA's chief executive, said: “There are all sorts of organisations who would like athletes to use the Olympic Games as a vehicle to publicise their causes.

“I don't believe that is in the interest of the team performance.

“As a team we are ambassadors of the country and we have to conform to an appropriate code of conduct.”

However, human rights campaigner Lord David Alton condemned the move as “making a mockery” of the right to free speech.

The controversial decision to award the Olympics to Beijing means this year's Games have the potential to be the most politically charged since 1936.

Adolf Hitler used the Munich Games that year to glorify his Nazi regime, although his claims of Aryan superiority were undermined by black American athlete Jesse Owens winning four gold medals.

More recently, there was a mass boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

But Colin Moynihan – now BOA chairman Lord Moynihan – defied Margaret Thatcher's calls for British athletes to stay at home and won a silver medal as cox of the men's eight rowing team.

Former Olympic rowing champion Matthew Pinsent has already criticised the Chinese authorities over the training methods used on children, which he regarded as tantamount to abuse.

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England Nazi salute Berlin 1938 Olympics

Past shame: The England team give Nazi salutes at the 1938 Berlin Olympics, a memory which critics do not want to see recalled in China

Young gymnasts told him they were repeatedly beaten during training sessions.

Mr Clegg confirmed that such criticisms would be banned under the team's code of conduct, which will be in force from when athletes are selected in July, until the end of the Games on August 24.

Mr Clegg said: “During the period of the contract, that sort of action would be in dispute with the team-member agreement.

“There are all sorts of sanctions that I can apply. I had to send a team member home in Sydney because they breached our sponsorship agreement and that is the first time it happened.

“I have to act in the interest of the whole British team, not one individual. No athlete is above being part of the team.

“There is a requirement on team members to sign the agreement. If athletes step out of line, action will have to be taken.”

Darren Campbell, Olympic relay gold winner at the 2004 Games in Athens, said the BOA's move would “heap extra pressure on athletes”. But he added: “We are there to represent our country in sporting terms, just as our Army do when they go off to war. It is not supposed to be about politics.”

The BOA is taking a far more stringent stance than authorities in other countries. Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said: “What we will be saying to the athletes is that it's best to concentrate on your competitions.

“But they're entitled to have their opinions and express them. They're free to speak.”

Jouko Purontakanen, secretary general of the Finnish Olympic Committee, said: “We will not be issuing instructions on the matter. The freedom of expression is a basic right that cannot be limited.

“But the starting point is that we will go to Beijing to compete, not to talk politics.”

Political gestures have been made at previous Olympics, most famously in Mexico City in 1968 when black American 200m champion Tommie Smith and bronze medallist John Carlos raised their fists in a black power salute.

Both were suspended from the US Olympic team and barred from the Olympic village.

Forty years on, British athletes face similar sanctions if they highlight the abuse of human rights in China.

Last night Edward McMillan-Scott, Conservative MEP and the European Parliament vice-president, predicted a public outcry over the BOA's move.

He said: “Foreign Secretary David Miliband is off to China soon. But before he gets on the plane, he and the rest of the Government should tell the BOA to take this clause out of the agreement.”

Potentially the contract means that a British athlete who witnesses someone being mistreated on the way to a stadium is forbidden from even speaking to their colleagues about it.

Competitors emailing home or writing blogs will also have to exercise self-censorship – or face having their Olympic dreams ruined.

Lord Alton said: “It is extraordinary to bar athletes from expressing an opinion about China's human-rights record. About the only justification for participating in the Beijing Games is that it offers an opportunity to encourage more awareness about human rights.

“Imposing compulsory vows of silence is an affront to our athletes, and in China it will be viewed as acquiescence.

“Each year 8,000 executions take place in China, political and religious opinion is repressed, journalists are jailed and the internet and overseas broadcasts are heavily censored.

“For our athletes to be told that they may not make any comment makes a mockery of our own country's belief in free speech.”

Video: Beijing Olmpics? What about human rights abuses?

Friction TV: Watch the video here.

China: Spero Report shows religious persecution on rise

Concern is that in 2009, after the Beijing Olympics, the persecution against churches and Christians will escalate and the human rights condition will seriously worsen.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Spero Forum By Robert Duncan

Photo by Gabana

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Persecution rose overall in China last year. Those are the findings, which some won't find that surprising, from the latest report from China Aid. But what may come to a surprise to many is the extent to which religious persecution is happening in China ahead of this year's Olympics. And there are concerns this bodes ill for Christians in particular after the sporting event.

According to China Aid, the known religious cases in which house churches were persecuted by the government covered 18 provinces and one municipality directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Government and there were 60 cases of persecution, up 30.4 percent from that of 2006.

Delving deeper into the report, one finds that the total number of people persecuted was 788, up 18.5 percent from that of the year before.

The total number of people arrested and detained was 693, up 6.6 percent from that of the year before.

On the positive side, China Aid noted that 16 people were sentenced to imprisonment, down 5.9 percent from that of the year before.

Some might argue those are low actual numbers when we are talking about the world's most populous nation. Others, such as myself, see it as ironic that the Olympics - by their very nature meant to open - can be hosted in a nation that still persists in enforcing a closed worldview with respect to religious freedom.

In particular, the China Aid report highlights four characteristics of persecution that the Chinese government is supporting against Christians.

1) Against the house church leaders: According to China Aid, this is also the characteristic in 2006 that is different from the large-scale persecution of ordinary believers in 2005. A total of 415 church leaders were arrested in 2007. This accounts for 59.9 percent of all people arrested and for 52.6 percent of all people suffering persecution.

2) Against house churches in urban areas: Among the 60 cases of persecution, 35 of them occurred in urban areas (not including small towns) which accounts for 58.3 percent, said China Aid. Among these, the number of people persecuted in urban areas is 599, accounting for 76 percent of a total number of 788 people.

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3) Against Christian publications: In China AId's report there are seven persecution cases related to the operation, printing, transportation and distribution of Christian publications. They account for 11.7 percent of all the 60 persecution cases. Though the percentage of this type is not very high, two religious cases aroused concerns from the international community, noted China Aid. One such case involves Zhou Heng who was punished for receiving a shipment of Bibles and operating legal Christian publications. Another, said China Aid, is that Mr. Shi Weihan in Beijing, who was charged despite running a legal operation of Christian publications.

4) Against foreign Christians and missionaries: China Aid said that because of "Operation Typhoon No. 5," a total of over 100 (84 already confirmed) foreign Christians were arrested, interrogated and expelled from the country. Most of these were Christians from the West and a few of them were Christians from South Korea and other countries, according to China Aid. About 70 foreign Christians were persecuted in Xinjiang. Some of these foreign Christians were not missionaries, but had their own secular professions in China. However, as they preached the Christian belief or were associated with local Christians and churches, they were persecuted by the government. This is the largest persecution operation of expelling foreign Christians since the early 1950s when the CPC drove out all of the foreign missionaries, China Aid said.

"2007 has seen a widespread increase of persecution across China. Statistics show that the number of cases of persecution, the number of people persecuted and the number of people arrested and detained has made a dramatic increase since 2006," China Aid said. "Concern is that in 2009, after the Beijing Olympics, that the persecution on churches and Christians will escalate and the human rights condition will seriously worsen. "