The [by now] infamous Olympic Torch relay has run into trouble for a second day as it now travels around the French capital Paris.
Yesterday’s relay around London saw thousands of pro-Tibet protesters lining the route, attempting to grab the torch and firing extinguishers at it. This combined with a farcical selection of celebrity torch-carriers who would appear to have no reason to be involved in a sporting event - everybody from the Sugababes to an old ITN news presenter. It appears that the protesters on the whole outnumbered regular spectators.
Despite calls from opposition parties for the British Prime Minister to distance himself from the proceedings due to China’s human rights record in Tibet, he received the torch at 10 Downing Street. Again there were protests at the Downing Street gates.
In Paris, officials had to extinguish the Olympic torch twice ‘for technical reasons’ when it was taken onto a bus to protect it from angry pro-Tibet protesters.
There was in Paris, as in London the day before, the faintly absurd presence of Chinese Security Forces Chinese Olympic Officials running in close formation with the torch in blue and white tracksuits, wading in to tackle protesters. The UK Met was showing some chagrin today as they explained that the Chinese officials had no jurisdiction or powers against protesters, I can imagine the French police will be experiencing some of the same embarrassment today.
Amnesty International reported that in 2004, a member of the National People’s Congress claimed that 10,000 people were executed each year.
You could fairly guess that many of those executions would be Tibetans where it is estimated the Chinese government has executed or otherwise killed over one million native people* since the beginning of the occupation in the 1950s.
*Source: Heritage Foundation
Tags: beijing, china, executions, extinguished, london, occupation, olympic games, olympic torch, paris, tibet, torhc relay
Entries (RSS)