IOC flags athlete free speech dilemma
Ashling O’Connor; 12/4/08
Athelete’s displaying Tibetan flags at Olympic venues - including in their own rooms - could be expelled from the Beijing Games under anti-propaganda rules. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said competitors were free to express their political views but faced sanctions if they indulged in propaganda. His comments accompanied his admission that the Games were in “crisis” after pro-Tibet protests engulfed the Olympic torch relay. Mr Rogge’s call for Beijing to abide by its promise to address human rights was given short shrift by Beijing, which bluntly told him to keep politics out of the Games.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23524747-25837,00.html
Tibet monks face starvation siege
Amrit Dhillon; 12/4/08
Thousands of monks are being starved into submission by Chinese soldiers who have surrounded their monasteries, cut off the water supply and stopped monks from going out to buy food, according to information reaching Tibetan exiles in India. The exiles, based in Dharamsala in the Himalayas where the Dalai Lama has lived in exile since 1959, fear that the monks could die if the outside world fails to intervene. “They are targeting the monasteries where protests took place,” said Karma Chophel, the Speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile. “In a week’s time, the monks might start dying of thirst or hunger. This is alarming news for us.”
See: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/tibet-monks-face-starvation-siege/2008/04/11/1207856835476.html
Friend on message
Rowan Callick; 12/4/08
This has been a week when the scenes that have stirred Australians most have been made in China. There was Kevin Rudd on Wednesday, lamenting in Mandarin the poor standard of his calligraphy to a hall full of amused students, then telling them as a zhengyou, a true friend, of Tibet’s “significant human rights problems”. The next day, the Prime Minister inspected the honour guard in the Great Hall of the People and stood to attention alongside his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, as the People’s Liberation Army band played the countries’ national anthems, provoking contemplation about the mood when these stirring tunes will be played next in Beijing, on the global stage of the Olympic Games in just four months. And throughout the week we saw the zeal of Free Tibet demonstrators and tracksuit-clad Sacred Flame Protection Unit guardians as the Olympic torch’s increasingly fractious “journey of harmony” wound through London, Paris and San Francisco.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23524822-25837,00.html
Rudd right to name and shame
Mike Steketee; 12/4/08
Kevin Rudd made a significant break with the past by going to Beijing to criticise publicly as well as privately China’s dreadful record on human rights. Not only was he much more forthright than the Howard government, he went further than most other Western leaders in pursuing the issue publicly during an official visit. Perhaps we should not be surprised, given, as the Chinese would see it, the terrible influences he came under in his youth. The supervisor of his honours thesis at the Australian National University was Pierre Ryckmans, the distinguished China scholar, author and critic of China under Mao Zedong.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23524751-7583,00.html