No freedom of speech in Nepal

Today, Tibetan women demonstrated peacefully in Kathmandu, calling for a free and independent Tibet.

They were arrested. Over 500 of them are now in a government detention centre, simply for peacefully expessing their views.

This is an outrageous denial of freedom of speech, from a government which should know better. In case they've forgotten, they are only in power today because so many Nepalese took to the streets to defend the right to speak out against their absolute monarch. But like their (almost former) king, the Nepalese government claims the right to jail any who disagree with it. I guess nothing has changed there after all.

Olympic farce: North Asia

The torch of shame did Seoul last night, and the trend of large pro-Chinese counterprotests reached its ugly conclusion. In Canberra, Chinese protestors bussed in by the embassy scuffled with human rights protestors. In Nagano, there were ugly scenes between competing Chinese and Japanese nationalists. And in Seoul, the Chinese decided that they'd just beat anyone who disagreed with them:

Hours before the torch run began in Seoul, several thousand Chinese, mostly students studying in South Korea, converged in this city's Olympic Park, singing, chanting and waving pickets that said “We love China” or “Go, Go China.”

When lone protesters demanded that China stop repatriating North Korean refugees, they were quickly surrounded by jeering Chinese. Near the park, Chinese students surrounded and beat a small group of protesters, news reports said.

In another scuffle, at the city centre where the five-hour torch run ended, Chinese surrounded several Tibetans and South Korean supporters who unfurled pro-Tibet banners, and kicked and punched them, witnesses said.

At one stage a Chinese mob decided to try and silence a group of 150 mostly elderly human rights protestors by throwing bottles, rocks, and steel pipes at them. "One world, one dream" - or else.

(New Zealand had its own version of this ugly nationalism in Auckland yesterday, when participants in a "pro-China" decided that their pride in and love of their country (or, less charitably, the pile of patriotic bullshit they'd been fed since day one by their totalitarian regime) gave them a licence to assault and intimidate those who disagreed with them. It's not acceptable in China and its not acceptable here. To their credit, the protest organisers at least intervened to try and stop it - but this is what happens when you start waving flags, and an excellent example of why we should treat all such incidents of patriotic chest-beating with suspicion).

The torch is now in Pyongyang, where it is finally getting the sort of greeting the Chinese have wanted all along - "hundreds of thousands of North Koreans in a choreographed mass display of flower-waving". Of course, North Korea is a totalitarian state which does not allow protests - just like China.

Not in my name

The latest leg of the Olympic farce has just kicked off in Canberra, with the usual protests and security measures. Meanwhile, for part of this le the torch will be carried by Aaron Fleming from hamitlon, who claims to be carrying the torch for all New Zealanders. I'd just like to make it clear that he is not carrying it for me, and that he only represents those New Zealanders who approve of China's oppression and torture and human rights abuses, or those who are so morally blind that they do not give a damn.

Olympic farce: New Delhi

The torch of shame did New Delhi last night - for all of half an hour. 70 runners carried the torch for a few seconds each, surrounded by the usual concentric rings of jogging bodyguards, inside a security cordon maintained by 15,000 police. No-one was allowed to watch, not even office workers in adjacent buildings, who (as usual) were told that looking out the window would be regarded as a security threat.

It really makes you wonder what the point is.

Olympic farce: the subcontinent

The torch of shame did Islamabad last night, with 60 athletes carrying it round the track of a stadium in front of a tiny invite-only crowd, guarded by thousands of armed police. The only way the public could watch it was on television. It was a little bit of Beijing, right there in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in India, the protests have already started, with 50 Tibetian exiles being arrested after breaching security to demonstrate in front of the Chinese embassy. Another group were arrested after staging an alternative rally along the official route. And so the world's largest democracy colludes to protect the reputation of the world's largest dictatorship...

The torch is supposed to do its New Delhi leg today, along a drastically shortened course, but it is unclear whether anyone will be allowed to watch, and officials won't even say what time it starts. So, they can have their relay, but only if they run it in secret with an army guarding it.

Olympic farce: Buenos Aires edition

The torch of shame did Buenos Aires this morning, where it got through mostly unscathed. Protestors threw water bombs and staged an alternative relay for a "human rights torch", but there were none of the ugly scenes seen in Europe and America. However, watching the video, there were three-times as many Chinese security thugs jogging alongside, and even more police (BBC reports twice as many as deployed in Paris). So, they can have a relay, but the security has to be so thick that no-one can actually see it.

The Guardian has an update on where the torch is going next. While it is expected to have an easy time in Dar es Salaam and Islamabad, it is likely to face severe problems in Delhi, and in Jakarta it will be restricted to doing a lap of the stadium (and even then will require 1,500 police to guard it). Canberra is already promising a show, and no-one really expects the torch to actually make it there. The Chinese regime just seem to be too sensitive about people upstaging their propaganda coup.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament has called for European leaders to boycott the opening ceremony. We should join them. Currently the government is planning to send both Governor-General Anand Satyanand and Minister of Sport Clayton Cosgrove to represent us in Beijing. If they go, they'll be signifying our approval of China's actions in Tibet and its abuse of human rights elsewhere. Instead of doing that, we should join Europe in making their presence conditional on China engaging in meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama over Tibet. Anything less betrays our previously strong support for human rights, and marks us out as a Chinese client-state.

Brown boycotts

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown will not be attending the Olympic opening ceremony. While Downing Street is trying to spin it as not being a boycott, saying there were never any plans to go, they had talked of doing so in the past, and there was a clear expectation that he would attend.

Nice of him to do the right thing, even if it came too late. So, will our own government show some spine, or are we now utterly subservient to China?

Olympic farce: San Francisco leg

The torch of shame is in San Francisco for yet another leg of its Chinese global propaganda tour. The route has already been shortened in response to Chinese concerns about protestors ruining their photo op, and according to media reports, it was shortened again today. More amusing is what happened when the torch was lit. It was expected to go by road, but instead, unexpectedly made the first part of its journey by boat:

Moments after it started on its relay here at 1:35 p.m., the Olympic torch disappeared.

The first flame bearer left the podium near this city's waterfront and, surrounded by security, dashed into a massive pier-side building less than 300 feet away, leaving stunned onlookers shaking their heads.

Moments later, a police boat pulled up to the dock, surrounded but officers on jet skis.

Is it a relay if no-one can see it?

According to the Guardian's liveblog, the torch has since returned to land, a significant distance from its original route, and it may not even finish at the original location. So, they have no protestors - but no spectators either. So much for taking the torch to the people...

Update: According to the Students for a free Tibet liveblog, one of the torchbearers pulled a Tibetan pulled a Tibetan flag, and had the torch taken away.

China exports oppression III

Reading the Telegraph, it seems the French police's attempts to protect the Olympic torch went well beyond providing security to include the (now-usual) suppression of free speech:

Pro-Tibet activists trying to reach the foot of the Eiffel Tower had already been driven back by police using loudhailers to demand that protestors carrying Tibetan flags leave a security zone

Similar demands were not made to those carrying French or Chinese flags.

Perhaps we should be asking ourselves why the police forces of supposedly democratic western governments show so little concern for their citizens democratic rights, and are so eager to assist an anti-democratic regime in suppressing free speech for propaganda purposes.

The Olympic farce continues

The torch of shame's trip to Paris today degenerated into the same sort of farce seen yesterday in London. Despite being surrounded by a 200m security cordon, with 3,000 police on foot, motorcycle, and even rollerblades (the same level of security normally used for a visiting head of state), the torch was almost grabbed twice, and was extinguished three times and transferred to a bus in an effort to hide it from protestors.

The security cordon is so wide that ordinary spectators can hardly see it. Instead, all they can see are security goons. One Frenchperson quoted in the IHT compared the scene to the streets of Lhasa, and they're not entirely wrong.

Meanwhile, in san Francisco, the torch's next destination, they're planning to corral protestors into "free speech zones" well out of sight of the actual route. First Amendment? Apparently they don't do that anymore. Still, it makes the point rather brutally: the only way the Olympic torch can have a free run is by the widespread suppression of freedom of speech - a point also made by cartoonist Pat Oliphant:

I'm just glad the damn thing isn't coming here.

China exports oppression II

I've already blogged about the Olympic torch's tumultuous journey through London amid an army of bodyguards and police. I had the impression that the UK police had been relatively good - sure, they'd grab anyone who leapt out at the torch or deliberately got in its way, but those who merely waved banners and shouted from the sidelines were left alone. It turns out I was wrong:

Before the torch arrived police circulated among Tibetan demonstrators ordering them to remove T-shirts and confiscating Tibetan flags in an apparent breach of a promise from Met commanders that police would not intervene to prevent embarrassment to Beijing.

Yonten Ngama, a Tibetan who has been resident in the UK for four years, was ordered to remove a T-shirt scrawled with three slogans, 'China Stop the Killing', 'No Torch in Tibet' and 'Talk to the Dalai Lama'. "They didn't tell me why, they just said I couldn't wear it," he said. Police on the ground declined to comment on the reasons for confiscating the T-shirt.

So, in order to protect China's image, the UK police turned part of London into a little bit of Tiananmen Square, in gross violation of UK law and its obligations under the ECHR. So much for "British liberty" and that long tradition of freedom of speech.

The torch of shame

The Olympic flame arrived in London today for the European leg of its worldwide relay in the leadup to the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese, in true propaganda style, have dubbed the relay "the journey of harmony", but its already turning out to be anything but. The London leg began at 10:30am UK time. Within an hour, someone had grabbed it, others had tried to put it out with a fire extinguisher, and ten people had been arrested.

Looking at the video, the torch has so many police and Chinese bodyguards (the people in blue) around it that I'm surprised anyone can see it at all. This is what Beijing's oppression has reduced the Olympics to: a staged propaganda run, with security so thick that it might as well not be happening, while the people boo from the sidelines.

And this is just the beginning. The torch will go to Paris tomorrow, where the city government will be telling them to stick it, then to San Francisco on Wednesday, where it will also be greeted with protests. This is going to happen everywhere the torch goes (or at least everywhere where people are remotely free to protest), from now until the torch returns to China in May. The Chinese media censors are going to have their work cut out for them if they want to spin this as a journey of harmony...

Making it worse

When the 2008 Olympics were awarded to Beijing seven years ago, it was claimed that the scrutiny entailed by hosting a major international event would create enormous pressure on the Chinese regime to improve its human rights practices. And this is partly correct - it has indeed created pressure. Unfortunately, it seems to have been in the wrong direction. According to a report [PDF] released today by Amnesty International, China's hosting of the Olympics has in fact made the human rights situation there worse:

It is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression is occurring not in spite of the Olympics, but actually because of the Olympics. Peaceful human rights activists, and others who have publicly criticised official government policy, have been targeted in the official pre-Olympics ‘clean up’, in an apparent attempt to portray a ‘stable’ or ‘harmonious’ image to the world by August 2008. Recent official assertions of a ‘terrorist’ plot to attack the Olympic Games have given prominence to potential security threats to the Olympics, but a failure to back up such assertions with concrete evidence increases suspicions that the authorities are overstating such threats in an attempt to justify the current crackdown.

The report goes on to note that the regime is meting out particularly harsh treatment to those who link the Olympics with human rights. At the same time, they have increased their censorship and obstruction of the media. They do not want anyone to spoil their moment of glory on the world stage by listening to the cries of screaming victims or pointing at the pile of rotting corpses in the corner. The thought that they could avoid criticism by improving their behaviour seems simply to not have crossed their mind.

We should not be part of this problem. We should refuse to reward a country which so abuses human rights, and we should refuse to participate in an event which is being used as a propaganda coup by a totalitarian regime. The only moral response is to boycott Beijing.

China exports oppression

The Olympic torch made it to Athens today to be officially handed over to China. There were the expected protests, and the expected arrests - which is fair enough when people charge a police cordon and try to block a road. But reading the media reports, the Greek police seem to have gone well beyond what was necessary to allow the event to proceed. According to BBC,

Police had warned they would confiscate all banners, signs or objects that might be thrown.

While the New York Times reported that

[E]ven before the hand-over began, three supporters of the Falun Gong spiritual movement were detained outside the sprawling all-marble Panathinaiko Stadium for distributing leaflets on the movement, which is outlawed in China.

“They continue to remain in police custody and we have been given no reason by the authorities for their arrest,” the Falun Gong supporters’ lawyer, Ignatios Tatoulis, said.

The latter in particular is simply outrageous. Greece is a modern democracy, a member of the European Union, and a party to various human rights instruments (including the UDHR, ICCPR and ECHR) which affirm the right to freedom of speech. And they're arresting people for quietly handing out leaflets?

It sounds as if rather than aiming to ensure the event goes ahead safely while protecting the rights of all their citizens, the Greek authorities are primarily interested in protecting China's image. And rather than ensuring China improves its human rights under the glare of global scrutiny (as originally advertised), the oppression Olympics are instead exporting Chinese oppression around the world.

Drowning out protest

The moment the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony was upstaged by protest, it became clear that wherever the torch went, it would face protestors aiming to highlight the Chinese regime's abuse of human rights. This threatens to undermine China's propaganda exercise, so they've organised a response. When the torch visits London next week, they will have thousands of Chinese students lining the route to drown out any hint of dissent.

It certainly shows the lie behind those claiming that politicians boycotting the opening ceremony will make no difference. Neither, supposedly, will a few people waving a flag. But China is so image conscious that they will massively overreact to that possibility. Which just shows how important it is to keep up the pressure and deny them the happy propaganda images they are seeking.

The boycott is on

Since China's crackdown in Tibet, pressure has come on governments and leaders around the world to show their disapproval by refusing to attend the "oppression Olympics". Now that pressure has borne fruit, with a number of European leaders refusing to attend the opening ceremony:

Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, became the first EU head of government to announce a boycott on Thursday and he was promptly joined by President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who had previously promised to travel to Beijing.

"The presence of politicians at the inauguration of the Olympics seems inappropriate," Tusk said. "I do not intend to take part."

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, confirmed that [German Prime Minister Angela] Merkel was staying away. He added that neither he nor Wolfgang Schäuble, the interior minister responsible for sport, would attend the opening ceremony.

It's a small gesture, but a significant one, which hits the Chinese where it hurts: by denying them the prestige they hope to gain by hosting the games. And with Merkel out, the pressure is now on other major European leaders such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown to follow suit.

As for New Zealand, I doubt Helen Clark will follow. She's already demonstrated that she's willing to walk over Tibetan corpses to get her free trade deal; after that, boycotting the opening ceremony would simply seem hypocritical.