The fundamental principles of the Olympic Charter “seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles and ... to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Therefore, the games, symbolizing the victory of humanity as a family, thrusts a moral responsibility, not just on the sporting community but also the entire world community, to promote the ideals of the Olympic movement. But the ideals of the Olympic movement were compromised for base commercial reasons when the IOC offered Beijing the honour to host the 2008 Olympic Games despite China holding the ‘worst human rights record'.
Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, days after Beijing won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics, told reporters that it was “essential to fight strongly against separatist activities orchestrated by the Dalai Lama and anti-China forces around the world”. And; true to his words; China has welcomed with bloodied hands, the historic institution of the Olympics; which has striven to promote peace through sports; with more killings, more torture, more repression, more arbitrary detentions, more censorship - the very reasons why China was denied the honour to host the Olympics for the year 2000.
Even today China remains a one-party dictatorship and colonial power; holding no national elections, has no independent judiciary, leads the world in executions, aggressively censors the Internet, bans independent trade unions, blatantly violates the fundamental human rights – not only of its own people – but more so the Tibetans, Uighurs, Manchurians and Mongolians who are all under China 's colonial rule. China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined. Amnesty International says China easily operates the most stringent capital punishment regime, with the true number of executions believed to be as high as 8000 in 2006.
Mr Manfred Nowak; UN Special Rapporteur on Torture; after concluding his fact-finding mission to China and Tibet in December 2005 stated that ‘torture remained widespread in China' and dismissed China's methods of ‘re-education' as measures which ‘strike at the very core of human rights to personal integrity, dignity and humanity' and further recommended the urgent need for reforms in the Chinese criminal law, the criminal procedure law and the criminal justice system. Harry Wu, the Chinese human rights activist who spent 19 years in forced-labour camps for criticizing the government, estimates that 16 to 20 million Chinese are incarcerated, including common criminals and political prisoners – the largest number of prisoners in the world.
Persecution, interrogation, incarceration and physical abuse of adherents to religious and spiritual movements continues in China . Hundreds of places of worship – including mosques, Tibetan temples, Catholic and Protestant churches – were shut down and in many cases demolished by the police. Since the start of the persecution against the Falun Gong practitioners, more than 3,000 deaths from inhuman torture and abuse have been confirmed by the Falun Dafa Information Centre.
While China runs around with the Olympic torch, throwing reflected light on her feigned image of social stability and record economic growth, the world should not forget the fact that mass demonstrations in China reached a record high of 87,000 in 2005 involving over 4 million people and that millions still languish in her prisons and slave labour camps .
In the present age of information freedom, all Chinese news media are owned and tightly controlled by the state – including the Internet and short messaging services (SMS). China controls the flow of information in Tibet and China , tightly restricting all media and regulating Internet use. At the first Olympics press briefing in Beijing, Liu Qi, Mayor of Beijing and President of the Organising Committee (BOCOG) revealed that China would bar sensitive material on issues such as human rights violations and announced a list of items not allowed to be brought into the country – including "print products and CD-ROMs which are harmful to China's politics, economy and culture."
• The government blocks access to Tibetan-language broadcasts of Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Voice of Tibet, as it does for the Chinese-language broadcasts.
• For the seventh consecutive year, the Committee to Protect Journalists ranked China the world's leading jailer of journalists, with 32 imprisoned; fifteen of the cases involving Internet journalists.
• Critics have labeled China 's ever more sophisticated system of controls on the Internet the “Great Firewall of China.” According to Jehangir Pocha, Beijing-based correspondent for the Boston Globe, about 200,000 websites have been banned from access in China .
• As China pollutes its way to development, the International Energy Agency has reported that China is fast becoming the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the ones that contribute to climate change.
• Reckless deforestation and unchecked mining practices in Tibet have resulted in the siltation, pollution and flooding of the 10 major rivers flowing down from Tibet that feed China and South Asia, sustaining 47% of the world's population.
• Acid rain is falling on one third of the Chinese territory; half of the water in China 's seven largest rivers is completely useless and in Beijing alone, the host city of the Games, 70 to 80 percent of all deadly cancer cases are related to the environment.
• China 's rapid urban development, fueled in Beijing by preparations for the 2008 Olympics, has led to the eviction of homeowners and tenants in violation of Chinese law and international standards on the right to housing. The Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) reports that 100,000 households, comprising more than 300,000 people, had been forcibly evicted for Olympic, venue construction.
The Olympic flag symbolizes peace, harmony and solidarity among various nations. But the Beijing games has become a nightmare for millions of freedom-loving people in China, because – under the pretext of 'security' and ‘safe games' the Chinese leaders have intensified their disdainful acts of detaining, torturing and even executing hundreds of Uyghurs, Tibetans and Chinese dissidents in the run-up to the Olympic Games.
Three decades of economic liberalisation hasn't been able to achieve the so-called democratisation and liberalisation of China that the world so hoped to see while 1.3 billion people continued to suffer and die for practicing their fundamental human rights. Three decades of diplomatic engagements has failed to improve the basic human rights situation in Tibet and China while China maintains a double-digit increase in her annual defense budget. Three decades of free trade hasn't been able to bring social stability and economic equality while the Chinese regime pursues a policy of ethnic cleansing through the acceleration of transfer of millions of Chinese immigrants into Tibet , Southern Mongolia and East Turkistan . There is no reason to hope that holding the Olympics in Beijing will make any difference.
No doubt that the Chinese people, deserve to host the Olympic games but what the Tibetans and the Chinese people deserve more is freedom. Freedom of speech, of religion, of association, of equal opportunity, of electing their own government, of feeling safe in their own homes. The day might not be far when Tibet will be an independent nation and our Chinese brothers would be free from the communist regime then it will be time for Beijing to host the Olympics. But not now. Not while the butchers of 1.3 million Tibetans remain in power. Not while the communist butchers of 70 million Chinese remain in power.
IOC should react accordingly and desist from sending the wrong message that IOC supports authoritarian rule and brutal suppression. It is time IOC must reconsider the decision and give the Olympic host status to a Civilized Nation.
After a two-year international campaign, the Chinese government has commuted the death sentence handed down to Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, a highly respected religious leader in eastern Tibet. Now, we are calling for his immediate release from prison. Tenzin Delek was targeted by Chinese authorities and framed for crimes he did not commit because of his work for the social welfare of people in his community.
On January 26th 2003, twenty-eight year old Lobsang Dhondup was executed by Chinese authorities and Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's death sentence was upheld. Both men were wrongly arrested and convicted for their alleged involvement in a series of unsolved bombings in Eastern Tibet. Following an intense international campaign by Tibetans and supporters, Tenzin Delek's sentence was commuted to life in prison. China wants this innocent Tibetan monk disapear. You can help make sure this doesn't happen.
China is one of the most tyrant regime without any respect to the human rights and the international rules that uphold the civilized world. This has been proved by the invasion of Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria and Xing Jiang. China not only invaded and occupied its neighbours with brute force but communist regime rolled tanks over the unarmed Chinese students in Beijing in 1989. The invasion of its neighbours shows its colonial and racist attitude. This also is a direct challenge to the United Nations Organisation (UNO) because China occupied the neighbouring countries after the founding of United Nations Organisation in 1945. The crushing of the patriotic Chinese students' democratic desire and the ultimate use of force rolling tanks over their own blood clearly shows that the Communist regime has no respect for human dignity and values. When they can not trust their own blood and respect the patriotic students desire for clean public life and human value, how can the world trust them.
China is not only a tyrant regime in itself, but it infringes the basic rights of its own people and the rights of the people of occupied countries. Due to the invasion of Tibet by China, over 1.2 million Tibetan people lost their lives unnaturally. At present there are many Tibetans serving in the different prison in occupied Tibet. The prisoners are forced to work without any pay that are due to them. In fact is a form of bonded labour. This bonded labour will result into production of different goods that are exported in cheap price. That is why the Chinese goods are cheap compared to the goods of other countries. This is an unfair trade practice that the Chinese have taken undue advantage cleverly but in contravene to the international trade practice. The goods that you buy that contains prison labour will in fact encourage the Chinese to produce more prison goods. This also encourages the Chinese to put more people in prison and increase the production through bonded labour that is free. Your buying of the Chinese goods means more prison labour in Tibet, China, Inner Mongolia and Xing Jiang. DO YOU WANT TO ENCOURAGE ALL THESE by buying the Chinese goods?
We request you to discourage the human rights violation in Tibet and China. We also request you to discourage the bonded labour and prison labour by BOYCOTTING MADE IN CHINA.
