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Agam's Gecko
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
 
TORCH, FREE TIBET ARRIVE IN BEIJING; PRESS FREEDOM DOUBTED; GENOCIDE INVESTIGATED
One Dream Free Tibet
Iain Thom of Edinburgh, Scotland affixes a Free Tibet banner to a light pole next to the "Bird's Nest" Stadium, on the morning of Her Flaming Harmoniousness' arrival in the Chinese capital, August 6, 2008.
Photo: Students for a Free Tibet
F

ree Tibet got there first, with two 140 square foot banners flown at dawn from light poles next to the Olympic stadium, just hours before the arrival of Beijing's torch of harmony. Four activists, two British and two Americans, were immediately detained by Chinese security forces.

Iain Thom of Edinburgh, Scotland raised the banner pictured here, which reads, "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet." Phill Bartell of Boulder, Colorado raised a banner reading, "Tibet Will Be Free," and the Chinese characters for "Free Tibet." Lucy Fairbrother of Cambridge, UK and Tirian Mink of Portland, Oregon were also arrested.

The two climbers each carried the Tibetan flag during their mission, erroneously reported by AP as "the flag of the Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government." Note to news organisations: The famous snow lion flag is not the flag of a government, it's the flag of a country. It was used by that country for many years before the communists invaded and militarily occupied it.

The spokesman for the Beijing Olympics Committee was not answering his phone this morning, and the Public Security Bureau had no comment. The action was carried out by Students for a Free Tibet, whose director Lhadon Tethong reminded reporters that the Chinese crackdown in Tibet is continuing today (three months after most of the international media stopped paying attention to it).
"At this moment the Tibetans inside Tibet are brutally and violently being crushed by Chinese authorities," Tethong said. "It's absolutely critical that ... a message is sent to the Chinese government to meaningfully address and end violence and repression in Tibet or they will never be truly accepted by the international community."
The latest assurances given by Beijing on press freedom during the Games have been cast into serious doubt by the beatings of two Japanese journalists covering Monday's attack on the paramilitary security forces in Kashgar.
Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corp., said he and Shinzou Kawakita, a photographer from the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, were grabbed by police late Monday and held for about two hours at a security facility.

"My face was pushed into the ground, my arm was twisted and I was hit two or three times in the face," Katsuta said in a telephone interview broadcast by his station.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China said Kawakita had described being surrounded by paramilitary police, lifted off the floor by his arms and legs, kicked and then pinned to the floor by an officer's boot on his face.

"This is utterly unacceptable any time. It's particularly reprehensible just days before the Olympics at a time when China has promised complete media freedom," said Jonathan Watts, the foreign correspondent club's chairman and a correspondent for the Guardian newspaper in Britain.
The Japanese government plans to lodge a "strong protest" with China over the incident. Xinjiang's top police official apologized for his mens' violence, while claiming that the reporters were "forcing their way into a military area." This "military area" is of course a public street in Kashgar, in front of a small hotel. The BBC's James Reynolds sent a video report from the spot yesterday, apparently after his own run-in with the law.

A Spanish court has accepted an extension to an ongoing investigation, which began in 2006, into the genocidal policies of China in Tibet. Testimony from three Buddhist monks, including Palden Gyatso, was heard in May. The newly accepted lawsuit denounces the new wave of oppression which began on March 10 this year, showing that "acts of genocide continue to be committed against the Tibetan people." In addition to Defence Minister Liang Guanglie, six other Chinese officials are named.
Other Chinese officials named in the suit were Minister for State Security Geng Huichang, Communist Party Secretary in Tibet Zhang Qingli, Politburo member Wang Lequan, Ethnic Affairs Commission head Li Dezhu, People's Liberation Army Commander in Lhasa General Tong Guishan and Zhang Guihua, political commissar in the Chengdu military command.
The complaint was filed by Spain's Tibet Support Committee and two other Tibetan groups.
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- posted by Agam @ 2:38 PM 5 comments

5 Comments:

The Chinese authorities only display their usual pattern of behaviour, the commitments and undertakings made for hosting these Olympics mean nothing to this regime.
http://one-just-world.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-spirit-of-olympics-indeed.html

By Blogger น้ำหนักบรรจุภัณฑ์, at 06 August, 2008 17:09  

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If you open the windows, you will have some flies coming in. No surprises...

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 06 August, 2008 19:53  

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"Free press" Bush means the press can be bought and manipulated to serve the corporate agenda because the Chinese press are controlled by the government. I do see the difference however bush thinks there is; well you can try and pull the wool over the eyes of someone else. This is a united effort by the corporations of the west to bombard the Chinese with negative marketing which is really blackmail at this crucial time in Chinese history. Their aim is for China to allow the western corporation’s access to the 1 Billion + untapped consumers so they can sell them their products and services.

There are many intelligence services agents under the guise of journalist in China spinning webs of subversion. Why the need ? well let’s call it economics the western corporations want access to the Chinese population and all the nationalised sectors to be in private hands. They are doing their utmost to undermine and humiliate China while billions of us watch they are turning this prestigious sporting event by politicising it.

What happened to the Sydney Olympics and the aborigines being unrecognised, mistreated, ghettoised and ignored of their rightful ancestral lands ? i will tell you it’s because western corporations own Australia just like South Africa only white might is right so shut up and don’t fight for your rights ! Expect more serious trauma to be inflicted on the Chinese because these corporations will not stop until they get what they want. All these rich kids making protest have the time and the money to make themselves a name these egomaniacs while the rest of us work 9 to 5 and 7 days a week.

The Chinese are the workhorse of the world and they can make almost anything so why would they allow money to go to western banks when they can provide all the needs of their consumers, pick up anything and read the reverse text "made in ?" yes CHINA ! Western corporations know the Chinese are modernising and developing at a fast rate and they see this as a threat because they don’t want the Chinese making and selling all the things their countrymen want because they feel this is against DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM, how absurd. Bush didn’t create FREEDOM neither has he a monopoly of this inalienable right go read your CONSTITUTION bush.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 08 August, 2008 06:30  

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Dear Phillip,

That's an interesting take on the situation. I think some of what you say has merit. But the fatal flaw in your logic lies in the idea you seem to have that everything happens because of superpower interests. (The superpowers will thank you for this, no doubt!)

Tibetans in particular lose any chance for agency, for free speech in fact, because they are just pawns of the superpowers. Tibetans are speaking. Of course if you have trouble finding out what they are actually saying, that's because people all over the world are hijacking the actual Tibetan aspirations to their own brands of interests. And it's not just the superpowers doing this, but the middlingpowers, too. Even NGOs do it.

Just answer these questions: Do Tibetans have any message they need heard by the world? If so, is this message being heard in the world? If not, why not?

In my mind Bush, or any other world leader outside the PRC for that matter, is not the main person responsible, regardless of what your answers are.

By Blogger Dan, at 08 August, 2008 23:12  

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How about one for Palestine people as well, and Chechens, and Kashmiris, and Thai Malayians, and Iraqis, and Afghanis where people are actually dying instead of dying for freedom ... I think not ... no one complained in West when Bosnians were ethnically cleansed.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 09 August, 2008 11:59  

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