The Twin Betrayals of the Olympics in 1936 and 2008

The Twin Betrayals of the Olympics in 1936 and 2008
By Thomas Kleiber Special to The Epoch Times May 12, 2008

The Olympic Games were first held in Greece, the birthplace of democracy, and from the beginning have carried the message that nations should gather in peace and compete in sports. There is an inherent kinship between the peaceful Olympic Games and the peaceful ways of democratic and free nations, and the Olympics have had their finest moments when hosted by democratic countries.

The years 1936 and 2008 have in common the hosting of the Olympic Games by totalitarian regimes: Nazi Germany and Communist China.


Nazi Germany was a one-party regime, as is China today. Both the Nazi and Chinese Communist parties struggled to gain power and the Nazis endeavored, just as the Chinese regime is endeavoring today, to establish a good reputation by hosting the Olympic Games.

Nazi Germany invented the tradition of having a torch relay, which served to connect and bind as many countries as possible to the event in Berlin. It was a propaganda campaign, one that continues to have an impact.

China has taken the torch relay to the extreme by planning the longest torch relay ever in history, including going high up atop Mount Everest. At every step the Beijing torch is protected by "torch guards," whose presence is already a break with the Olympic spirit.

These totalitarian Olympics may put a parenthesis around the torch relay: After the protest-plagued 2008 Olympic torch relay, the IOC is considering ending the tradition that started in Berlin.

Before holding the Olympic Games Nazi Germany had started to persecute the Jewish community, although it did not begin the "final solution" until several years later. The Nazis didn't even dare to officially exclude Jews from participating in the Games (although Jews were prohibited from representing Germany in the Games).

The Chinese regime has not only started to persecute a group of people for their religious beliefs, but is even very frank about its policy of persecution. At the end of 2007 a spokesperson for the Beijing Olympic Committee stated that practitioners of the Falun Gong are excluded from all Olympic activities.

All human rights organizations and governments know that Falun Gong is one of the main victims of state-sanctioned persecution in China. Several thousand adherents have been tortured to death because of their beliefs.

In Nazi Germany, Dr. Josef Mengele started human experiments on Jews after the Berlin Olympics, during the Holocaust.

In today's Communist China medical doctors have for several years been extracting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners for profit. The live organ harvesting is believed to have started in 2001, the same year that China won the bid for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Nazi Germany needed all countries to come to the Olympic Games in Berlin as a sign of the legitimacy of the Nazi regime. Nothing less is the case in China: The attendance of government officials from around the world at the opening ceremony is considered a measure of approval for the Chinese regime.

The fascist German regime and the communist Chinese regime would appear to be opposites, although similar in betraying the Olympic spirit. However, the communist regime in China has adopted so many capitalistic measures that it cannot be considered communist anymore. Since 1989 it has transformed itself into a fascist regime that uses the Communist Party to dominate society and ruthless capitalistic measures to provide sustaining fuel for the Party's rule.

Of course, the Chinese regime doesn't have a Führer like Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of a movement that sought to vindicate Germany's greatness. However, in China, the Communist Party plays a role similar to that of the Führer, demanding all serve it as the embodiment of China's national destiny.

In the debate about whether the Berlin Olympics should have been boycotted, some claim that Jesse Owens competing in the Olympics refuted Adolf Hitler's racist theories. However, Owens' four gold medals were not able to stop the Holocaust in which an estimated 8 million were killed. In looking back, we might ask if a boycott of the 1936 Berlin Games would not have been more successful in helping avoid World War II and the Holocaust.

In 1936, there were no precedents for how to deal with an Olympic Games held in a totalitarian country. In 2008, we once again face the question how to deal with a totalitarian host of the Olympic Games.

The Chinese regime argues that sports and politics should be separated.

The Olympic Charter speaks of placing "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."

The Charter also speaks of "respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."

By describing as "politics" any objections to systematic violations of human rights that retard the harmonious development of man, deprive society of peace, destroy human dignity, and violate "universal fundamental ethical principles," the Chinese regime is not separating "politics" from sports. It is separating the Olympic Games from their hallowed purpose. And it is doing so even while increasing the persecution against groups like the Tibetans and the Falun Gong.

It is fitting that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up under communism in East Germany, should be one of the first national leaders in her actions to show an understanding of the significance of the Beijing Olympics. She knows that basic human rights cannot be considered independent from other issues, much less the Olympics, and she has lead the way for other European leaders by announcing she will not attend the Opening Ceremony in Beijing.

In 1936 the world, when confronted with a betrayal of the Olympics by a totalitarian regime, failed to uphold the fundamental principles central to the Olympic movement. This year the world gets a second chance. The nations of the world may choose to participate in the self-promotion of a brutal regime and in doing so to betray the Olympic spirit or they may insist that the Olympics must be kept true to itself

I TOO HAVE A DREAM

Yang Sen is a Falun Gong pracitioner living in the United States and was invited to speak on the aniversary of Martin Luthers death at Martin Luther King's memorial in Atlanta yesterday .. Martin Luther King's wife heard about the Genocide of Falun Gong practtioner's in China before she died.

http://www.youmaker.com/

Yang Sen A Falun Gong practitioner who
also has a dream.

Here is is his speech :

I too have a dream

Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Sen Yang, President, Mid-USA Falun Dafa Association

Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary

Atlanta, Georgia

Jan. 21, 2008

President Clinton, Governor Huckabee, Senator Isakson, Mayer Franklin, and all honorable guests:

In 1992, I started my graduate study at Georgia Tech. I landed in Atlanta, a great city best known as the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I am honored to call this great city my second home in honor of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And “Georgia is on my mind”.

But when I first arrived, I knew little about Dr. King. I very much wanted to return to China. Everything was so unfamiliar to me. But then I noticed something I had never before experienced.

I noticed that people in this country could say what they think without being arrested by the thought police. I noticed that people went to church on Sundays and that all people were free to practice their religion. I never saw people being arrested for bible study or for trying to be good and kind citizens of this country.

There was only one word that could describe my feeling: Freedom.

At first, I thoughts these freedoms were easily achieved in the United States. But then as I studied U.S. history, I learned about Martin Luther King Jr., one of the main leaders of the American civil rights movement. I read Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” and started to have my own dream.

I talked with a friend in China. He asked me what greatest thing was in US. I told him it was “freedom” I enjoy the most. He replied: “You are rich and we are poor. We will chase after ‘freedom’ when we get more money.” I told my friend: “You don’t need to be rich to fight for the right to be free.” I told him that Dr. King fought for the freedom not because he was rich, but because he had the heart.

I lived in China for 31 years and now in this country for 15 years. I love China and I love the people in China. I want them to be respected and live like human beings. I want them to enjoy the same inalienable rights that God has given to all his people, not only in the United States, but everywhere.

Inspired by Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” I thank him for the sacrifices he endured to help all people in the United States become free. His life is an example for all people everywhere who have a dream of freedom, even me – a humble physicist happy to live as a free man in this country. I too have a dream.

I dream that all people in China will have freedom of thoughts and that they won’t have to endure persecution (torture, illegal arrests and interrogation) because of their most deeply held thoughts and ideals.

I dream that all people in China will have freedom of religion and that they won’t be persecuted because of what they believe; and that they won’t be sentenced to illegal prison terms or subjected to extra judicial killing.

I dream that Falun Gong practitioners in China can one day, walk to the public park and start to do the morning exercise without being beaten by the police.

I have a dream that my daughter can return to China and will not be judged by her belief in Falun Gong, but by her character. And, as Martin Luther King Jr. said,

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

BY not boycottiing the 2008 Olympics

Are we just giving Comfort to tyrants?

Maybe sponsors VISA, Coca Cola and Kodak could ask and answer this question?

Edward McMillan-Scott has written another glaringly truthful article called
Power of the sports boycott

Excerpt read more here
THE Government wants it both ways on sport boycotts. It is trying to ban Zimbabwe's cricket team from a UK tour but wants to hang on to Zimbabwe – and other sympathetic African countries especially South Africa – for the 2012 London Olympics.

In a world clamouring for democracy and the universal value of human rights, Britain could give a lead by arguing for a switch of all future games to Athens, home of the Olympics and a 2004 spectacular (and saving us £10 billion in the process) – as well as saying no to Zimbabwe's cricketers.

Unlike sanctions, boycotts work and yes, sport, politics and religion are inevitably mixed.


The truth is that sport is now a high-profile commercial activity with an unprecedented impact on the public.

So much so that Pope Benedict recently gave football his blessing and said: "Soccer should increasingly become a tool for the teaching of life's ethical and spiritual values".

In 2001, making his pitch for the 2008 Olympics, bid spokesman Liu Jingmin argued that: "By allowing Beijing to host the games you will help the development of human rights".

Even though article one of the Olympic Charter insists on "universal fundamental ethical principles" the crackdown by Beijing on dissidents and religions has continued with increased severity.

Last month, the European Parliament unanimously expressed "serious concern" and invited the IOC to make its own assessment of China's compliance with its pledges. Maybe sponsors VISA, Coca Cola and Kodak could ask the questions.

On December 27, Hu Jia, an environmental activist who has publicised Beijing's appalling air quality and the demolition of hundreds of thousands of homes to make way for the Olympics, was taken from his home by 20 policemen.

Another noted dissident, Christian human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng – sometimes called China's Lech Walesa – has disappeared in similar circumstances after an open letter criticising Olympic corruption. I had been in regular contact with both.

Gao is best known for his report on the regime's vast brutality against the Falun Gong "Buddha school" spiritual movement.

Harry Wu, an exiled dissident, runs a US research foundation which estimates that there are about 1,100 penal camps in China's Laogai system with an estimated 6.8 million inmates, most detained without trial.

The UN's torture specialist, Austrian jurist Manfred Nowak, says the majority are Falun Gong practitioners, being "re-educated" or tortured to recant. Survivors have told me of SS tactics.

At least 3,000 deaths have been confirmed under torture since the crackdown on Falun Gong's 70 million practitioners began in 1999 – for no other reason than its popularity as a health-promoting activity.

They are probably the reason why China is switching this month from executions by a shot in the head to lethal injections, as I am told this preserves prisoners' bodies better as a quarry for the army's lucrative organ transplant industry.

Would the 1936 Berlin Olympics have taken place if the world had known about the Nazi's camps?

US Supreme Court judge Felix Frankfurter said of Jan Karski's
reports about the SS camps: "I did not say that this young man was
lying. I said that I was unable to believe what he told me. There is
a difference."

It is time to stop the humbug in this globalising world: sports boycotts work. And it is time to stop the suffering in both China and Zimbabwe.



An Olympic boycott was imposed against South Africa by the IOC itself in 1964 because of apartheid; it worked. In 1980, the US and 60 other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; within three years the USSR was crumbling.

Those who argue against boycotts say that "being there" matters more: I disagree, it just gives comfort to tyrants.

In 1987, President Reagan bluntly told the South Korean junta that, unless it brought in democracy, the US would boycott the 1988 Seoul Olympics: democracy was introduced.

It is time to stop the humbug in this globalising world: sports boycotts work. And it is time to stop the suffering in both China and Zimbabwe.


Edward McMillan-Scott is Conservative MEP for Yorkshire and Humber and is vice-president of the European Parliament and founder of the EU Democracy and Human Rights Initiative

There is No New China

"An Olympics held without freedom and against the will of the people will … be nonsense because no totalitarian regime can play at being a democracy. It is a pretend harmony and happiness.He says the party is like the Mafia, its only purpose being to protect and maintain its power.The goal of the CCP was to overthrow private property, but every one of the 70 million members of the party today raise their hands at one moment to announce their lives will be sacrificed to end capitalism. This is the biggest lie and if you have 70 million professional liars who are controlling the whole nation … it's a madhouse."

The artist as an angry man

Ai Wei Wei... "‘‘An Olympics held without freedom andagainst the will of the people will . . . benonsense..."
Photo: Bernardo de Niz

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/01/18/1200620207518.html

Mary-Anne Toy
January 19, 2008

Excerpt

In 2003 Ai was asked to collaborate with the celebrated Swiss architectural firm Herzog and de Meuron to enter the design competition for the Olympic national stadium. Their dazzling and technically challenging proposal for a sinuous steel-lattice stadium, which resembled for locals a giant bird's nest, won. With the stadium now largely finished — it is undergoing a fitout for the top-secret opening ceremony and remains under tight security — Ai now says he will boycott the opening ceremony. He is revolted at the way the Chinese Government is using the 2008 Games to whip up a false nationalism that conceals the abuses of a one-party state.

In an interview last year with The Guardian, he attacked Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, Hollywood's Steven Spielberg and others over their work on the opening ceremony, calling them "shitty directors" prostituting themselves to promote China's one-party dictatorship by agreeing to work for the Chinese Government. "It's disgusting. I don't like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgement. It is mindless," Ai told The Guardian. In his first blog for this year, Ai unleashed another lament about the state of affairs in his homeland, lampooning the Olympic slogans "We are Ready" and "One World, One Dream".

THE blog reflects that after 30 years of "opening and reform", China today is a nation where the poor are becoming poorer while no one questions how the nouveau riche made their fortunes.

"2007 was year of strenuously defending rights … with both growth and collapses. People got used to desperation and disillusionment, the incompetence of the regime and being told habitual lies," it says.

"Nobody cares why poverty continues. Prices are going up crazily, air and water are polluted and land is disappearing," he rails. The rich have become so not through hard work and skill but through "hidden deals" and membership of the Communist Party.

"The disgraceful reality is that although our national economic strength has surpassed Germany's and is only behind that of Japan and the US, in the last 30 years, there has been no real sense of political reform, no real elections, citizens' rights have not been realised, there is no free speech or free press … people have lost faith and the Government has no credibility.

"An Olympics held without freedom and against the will of the people will … be nonsense because no totalitarian regime can play at being a democracy. It is a pretend harmony and happiness."

Ai says that while he is one of the most widely quoted cultural and social commentators in China, his political views are never published. Not a word of his anti-Olympic tirade has appeared in the Chinese media (although ripples of his dissent inevitably spread through cyberspace). His blog provider has been repeatedly threatened by the cyber-police but has so far stood firm (it did take down two posts, one about Tiananmen Square and the other about the Olympics, but reposted them the next day).

When I checked with a Chinese journalist colleague about whether Ai's Olympic views had been published in the Chinese media, she looked at me in horror. "No, no, no," she said, the very suggestion that anyone would be allowed to say things so negative about China's glorious Olympic adventure was ridiculous.

This week Ai won the lifetime achievement award at the Chinese Contemporary Art Awards, founded in 1998 by Uli Sigg, a former Swiss ambassador to Beijing who owns the world's largest and most complete collection of contemporary Chinese art. The citation said that perhaps no other artist "mirrored the volatile and challenging development of Chinese contemporary art more deeply and accurately".

While in the art world he may be revered, Ai says he has plenty of critics. He has been called an "American running dog" and accused of only speaking out because of his celebrity and having an American passport. He disagrees. He has always spoken out, he merely gets heard a little more now that he is famous. He doesn't have an American passport but neither does he condemn the many Chinese intellectuals who have taken up residence overseas.

Ai says his life would be far more comfortable and productive if he didn't speak out. "All my close friends, family call me and say 'Ai Wei Wei, c'mon, you have your comfortable life, so many things to do, why are you doing this (criticising the Government)?'

"They don't understand why I do this; I think I am doing this because no one understands why," he jokes before turning serious again.

"I hate to repeatedly talk about these things. They are not in any way comfortable or easy subjects, and I get more emotional when I think about them and it's not constructive," he says. "But as a human being, member of society, you must clearly state your mind. It's a responsibility … it is the way you identify yourself otherwise you don't know who you are and why you are here. I don't have a choice, it's the way I live."

HE SAYS for the rest of the world to understand why China is as it is, it must understand the nation's history. For 2000 years the Middle Kingdom believed itself the centre of the world and that it needed nothing from the rest of the world. So when the Western powers came knocking in the 19th century, the emperor refused to open trade relations, saying the world had nothing China needed. The West refused to take no for an answer. The Opium War forced China to make humiliating concessions to the Western powers and Japan.

The overthrow of the failing last dynasty, the Manchu, and its replacement with Sun Yat Sen's Republic quickly stalled then faltered into the civil war between Mao Zedong's Communists and Chiang Kai-Shek's corrupt Nationalists and invasion by Japan before the short-lived euphoria of the Communist victory in 1949.

The People's Republic of China was quickly plunged into decades more of famine, natural and man-made disasters, and convulsive purges including the anti-rightist movement that claimed his father, and the Cultural Revolution. Then came the latest phase, after Mao's death in 1976, when his successor Deng Xiaoping ushered in market reforms from 1978, believing that allowing the people to get rich (with some people getting rich first) would enable the Communist Party to retain power. Ai is disgusted that that is in effect what has happened.

"It is very important to understand China that you know very soon after 1949, even before the Communists had total control, because of the severity of the problems facing China (what Mao called the 'three mountains' on China's back of feudalism, imperialism and bureaucracy) they developed into a totalitarian state that could not tolerate dissent." He says the party is like the Mafia, its only purpose being to protect and maintain its power.

Ai says the Chinese Communist Party gutted any remaining ideological basis for being.

"The goal of the CCP was to overthrow private property, but every one of the 70 million members of the party today raise their hands at one moment to announce their lives will be sacrificed to end capitalism. This is the biggest lie and if you have 70 million professional liars who are controlling the whole nation … it's a madhouse.

"Why can't you clearly speak out and talk about historical events — what's wrong with you? Why are you (the party) so timid and scared to have debate?"

He wants a brighter future for his country, where people truly have a chance to better their lives. "Life is precious. I don't care how many members your party has, how strong it is, how glamorous, how the world will cheer during the Olympics …

"Every deal is covered, has hidden rules which can never be openly discussed and the sacrifice is education, medical care, the environment, social crimes and shattered families and hopelessness … people have lost faith in the Government and confidence in the future," he says.

"Yes there will be the Olympics on August 8, but there is no New China."

AI WEI WEI CV

BORN Beijing, 1957.

EXILED from 1958-78 with his family (his father, poet Ai Qing, was deemed a rightist and sentenced to labour camp) in the deserts of Xinjiang, far-western China.

STUDIED at the Beijing Film Academy and briefly at New York's Parsons School of Design.

MOVED in 1981-93 to the United States for 12 years, mostly working in New York.

PUBLISHED upon his return to China Black Cover Book, White Cover Book and Grey Cover Book, on China's underground art movement. These have become the standard reference texts.

PERSONAL Married to artist Lu Qing.

AWARDS Chinese Contemporary Art Award 2008 for Lifetime Contribution.

Mary-Anne Toy is China correspondent.

Some Truths Are Intolerable

Some Truths are Intolerable

Our Governments know theTruth

The United Nations know the Truth

Media knows the Truth

Human Rights Groups know the Truth

After you watch this you will know the truth

This is a short film about the persecution of Falun Dafa (a peaceful spiritual movement in China), at the hands of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). From 1992-1999 Falun Dafa was freely practiced throughout China, until the government decided that there were too many people practising the energy exercises and meditation. They banned the practice and immediately declared 100million people as being 'criminals'. Since then, thousands have been tortured to death for their beliefs, hundreds of thousands are in slave labour camps, and millions have had their lives ruined by their own government. It is the intention of What Is Tough to bring to the public's attention this global disaster, before the Olympic Games are held in Beijing in August of 2008. Please visit www.whatistough.com for more information on the project. Please vote for this film, so that more people become aware of the this issue. Thank you.

Here Comes the 2008 Beijing Olympic Disaster

I dont think this is an amazing prediction- its really a conclusion that is absolutely inevitable - a disaster just waiting to happen. Please watch out people..think twice before going to an Olympic Event hosted by a brutal communist regime. The only difference between North Korea and communist led China is money.

Mike Elgan's report below leaves nothing out and Human rights activists all around the world will be applauding this piece of fine journalism.!!

Prediction:

The story of the year in 2008 will be the colossal failure of censorship during the Beijing Olympic games.

By Mike Elgan

The games themselves will be exciting, lavish and hotly contested. But the main event will be the clash between the Chinese Communist Party, which will use biometrics, surveillance, censorship and an army of goons to suppress information about China's many problems, versus journalists and tourists, who will use digital cameras, wireless gadgets, and the Internet to show China’s dirty laundry to the world.

The Chinese government sees the Beijing 2008 Olympics as China's "coming out party" -- the unveiling of a shiny, new, powerful, prosperous and stable China fully recovered from a century of weakness, division, poverty, famine, upheaval and despair.

But recent and impressive economic growth obscures the fact that China is still ruled by a repressive, authoritarian police state. The millions of disaffected, abused, forgotten minorities, farmers, dissidents, students and others long silenced by government repression also see the Olympics as *their* "coming out party. " It's the one chance for these groups to get their message to the world.

The 2008 Olympics are the first Games to take place in an authoritarian country since the Internet went mainstream. This "window" will open briefly, then close, which makes it all the more urgent for people inside China to take full advantage during the Games.

Do you see the incredible train wreck that's coming our way?

China represses information with its "Great Firewall of China," by controlling the media and jailing and/or executing dissidents. But since China won its bid in 2001 to host the games, the "citizen journalism" movement happened. The half-million people invited to come inside the firewall this summer will all have camera phones, digital cameras and digital video cameras. These people are largely beyond the coercive power of the Chinese government. They will capture everything they see, and upload it all to YouTube, LifeLeak and Flickr.

China wants to present a peaceful and harmonious face to the world. But failed boycotters, dissidents, the unfairly evicted, the forgotten poor, victims of pollution, Tibetans, the Falun Gong, human rights organizations – you name it – intend to present a contrary image. Everyone, it seems, is out to wreck the games.

These groups will do everything in their power to air grievances in front of the foreign press or stage protests before groups of camera-wielding tourists.

Never mind that man behind the curtain! China will dangle an official view of China in front of the media, but many journalists will seek out fresh and authentic stories. They’ll film shops selling counterfeit electronics, life-threatening pollution, and child labor. They’ll document infanticide, agrarian riots, illiteracy, toxic food and many other unapproved stories.

China can either allow access to all these visuals, or block access, and have the censorship become the story. Or, most likely, it will do both – the worst of all outcomes for the Beijing government.

Certainly, the journalists are preparing to spoil China’s party. Reporters Without Borders has made nine demands of Beijing before the opening of the games. China won't meet these demands, and the organization will make a lot of noise about all this as the games approach.

Amnesty International has even distributed a Media Kit for all the thousands of journalists covering the games, which catalogs China's many human rights violations.

Thousands of people thrown out of their homes as part of China's $40 billion redesign of Beijing in preparation for the games will air their grievances for all to see. In fact, they already are. The Olympics will merely put these stories on the front page and on primetime news worldwide.

Beijing can and will put lipstick on a pig, but all will be revealed when the world is invited into the sty itself – cameras, Internet and all.

Olympic-Size Violations

Beijing Tells Press of Intent to Bar Millions of Falun Gong, Violate Olympic Charter

Beijing Olympic organizers have openly expressed a policy banning Falun Gong adherents from attending the 2008 summer Olympics, the Falun Dafa Information Center reported Wednesday. Beijing’s decision stands in stark violation to Articles 35 and 36 of China’s own Constitution, which promise freedom of association and religious belief, as well as the International Olympic Committee’s bylaws, which prohibit any form of discrimination—including that religious or political.

The Falun Dafa Information Center condemns Beijing’s decision, and calls upon the international community to pressure China’s communist officials to reverse the unlawful policy.

“The Olympics must not be turned into a theatre of intolerance, a celebration of communist machinations,” said Information Center spokesperson Mr. Erping Zhang. “We’re talking about tens of millions being barred from the Games simply for who they are. This amounts to a violation of the Olympic Charter on a scale nobody could have imagined.”

News of Beijing’s discriminatory plans was made public in a November 8 report from the Associated Press. The report indicates that Beijing’s new, allegedly-more-tolerant religious policies “do not apply to Falun Gong,” and instead only reassert “China’s determination to marginalize, persecute and eradicate the spiritual movement.”

Li Zhanjun, director of the Beijing Olympics media center, told AP that, “Falun Gong texts, Falun Gong activities in China are forbidden,” and that, “Foreigners who come to China must respect and abide by the laws of China.”

Beijing’s explanation is not satisfactory, however, in that the branding of Falun Gong as “illegal” was in contravention to the constitution of the People’s Republic of China, as well as numerous international rights accords and covenants of which the PRC is a signatory. Article 35 of China’s own constitution, for instance, claims that citizens “enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.”

Article 36 of likewise declares that citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief,” and that, “No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion.”

The Olympics should hardly occasion an exception to such policies, even if PRC authorities have flaunted them for decades. To the contrary, the IOC had indicated that the Games would compel China’s rulers to improve the nation’s abysmal human rights record. The Olympic Charter states clearly: “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”

The IOC’s regulations thus protect against the marginalization of groups such as the Falun Gong, even if such discrimination is internally legislated; the branding of Falun Gong as “illegal” does not change the religious character, or rights, of the group, and only bespeaks of the willingness and disposition of China’s communist authorities to subordinate rule of law to political caprice.

“Beijing’s calling Falun Gong ‘illegal’ is a clumsy attempt to justify what is a program of institutionally-sanctioned violence and persecution. The fact remains: millions of peaceful, law-abiding citizens who aspire merely to better health and moral living are being brutalized and deprived of their rights by an authoritarian communist regime,” says the Information Center’s Zhang. “In all of the other 75, non-communist states around the world where Falun Gong is found it is freely, legally, and openly practiced. Only in communist China does it face relentless suppression.”

According to a 2005 report by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, 66% percent of reported victims of torture in China were Falun Gong adherents. In a 2006 report, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture expressed concern over increasing reports of systemic repression against the Falun Gong saying, “reports of arrest, detention, ill treatment, torture, sexual violence, deaths, and unfair trial of members of so-called ‘heretical organizations,’ in particular Falun Gong practitioners, may reflect a deliberate and institutionalized policy of the authorities to target specific groups such as the Falun Gong.”

The Falun Dafa Information Center has verified details of over 63,000 instances of torture, with over 3,000 deaths in custody. The actual death toll is believed to be as high as 10,000 or more.

Beijing’s latest statement follows a series of warnings sounded by the Information Center. The Center anticipated such policies, and has sought international support in preventing their enactment.

In 2005, for instance, the Center received credible reports that PRC authorities were, in preparation for the Olympic Games and in contrast to their promise to improve human rights, stepping up measures to “stamp out” Falun Gong prior to summer 2008.

In May 2007, the Center reported on a secret directive from the Ministry of Public Security, provided to the Center by sources in China, that lists 43 categories of unwanteds who are to be investigated and barred from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (news / document)

The Information Center is currently seeking statement from IOC officials on Beijing’s announcement, and seeks clarification of what measures will be used to ensure that policies of discrimination are not carried out, be it openly or covertly, by PRC authorities.

# # #

NEWS - Nov. 14, 2007
Falun Dafa Information Center, www.faluninfo.net

Mainland Chinese people, eagerly hope for the Human Rights Torch Relay to reach China

"The Chinese Communist Party, despise the international society and have betrayed their people. We protest strongly against human rights violations caused by the Chinese government."

"We hope eagerly the Human Rights Torch Relay will arrive in China soon and let the heavenly single spark start a prairie fire. Because so far most of the ordinary people in China have do not have any basic human rights which modern civilians should have, there are no election under democracy; no multi-parties taking turn; no media freedom; no supervision by public opinion; so for the officials, they do not care about how ordinary people are suffering from the extremely hard way of life at all. "

Mainland Chinese people, eagerly hope for the Human Rights Torch Relay to reach China

Since the ignition of the Human Right Torch Relay on the 9th August in Athens, Greece, it has made its journey to over twenty countries across the world. With support and concerns given by all walks of lives in the past two months, the Mainland Chinese people broke through layers of layers of blockade to send their voices overseas, expressing their support of the Human Rights Torch Relay and their hopes for the arrival of the Human Rights Torch Relay to reach China.

Please read the announcement by mainland Chinese, support of the Human Rights Torch Relay and their longing for the arrival of the Torch Relay in China.

"We hope eagerly the Human Rights Torch Relay will arrive in China soon and let the heavenly single spark start a prairie fire. Because so far most of the ordinary people in China have do not have any basic human rights which modern civilians should have, there are no election under democracy; no multi-parties taking turn; no media freedom; no supervision by public opinion; so for the officials, they do not care about how ordinary people are suffering from the extremely hard way of life at all.

It has been a common phenomenon of the cahoots between traders and officials, and the corruption of the government. Without any supervision, the officials deprive the land, housing and private properties of the people unscrupulously through their power in hand.

There is no place for people to speak up and petition. They have to appeal in Beijing in crowds, while being treated as a crazy repression by China’s dictatorship. The appealers were bashed and arrested, and even some beaten to death.

We look forward to the Human Rights Torch Relay to arrive in China soon, and let the heavenly single spark start a prairie fire, which can urge the Chinese government to improve the situation of Human Rights, and stop offending against the laws.
With many of us hoping for the arrival of the Human Rights Torch Relay in China, Chinese people would appreciate having their rights acknowledged and bestowed upon by the constitutions of the People’s Republic of China at an early date. The legislative politics would be implemented according to the regulations stipulated in the constitutions, so as to protect every citizen and to have the right of freedom of speech, rights to their private properties, to safeguard and supervise their rights and their rights to general elections, and also to enjoy and exercise a variety of rights entitled to citizens in a modern and civilized country.

We eagerly hope for the Human Rights Torch Relay to arrive in China soon and let the heavenly single spark start a prairie fire. Many people have the same wish; all of us hope the Human Rights Torch Relay will arrive in China soon. When China applied to host the 2008 Olympic Games in July 2001, they promised to improve China’s human rights, but there have been no essential improvements in the latest seven years.

The persecution to some people like Gao zhisheng, LiHe marty and others who opposed the Communist party are more severe. The Chinese Communist Party violated their promise, and most of the Olympics preparation work has broken laws and their promise, which has lead to the people losing their land, forcing them to become homeless, and most left them in difficult situations.

The Chinese Communist Party, despise the international society and have betrayed their people. We protest strongly against human rights violations caused by the Chinese government. So in China especially in Shanghai, the despotism is even more severely to imposed on us. Some of us were beaten every time we went to Beijing and in the recent two years we have been beating more severely. So we hope the Global human Rights Torch Relay will arrive in China soon to bring hope for us."

At present, the Global Human Rights Torch Relay reached its first stop in Australia, Sydney at 10:00am on the 27th October, which will be lit in multiple cities in Australia over a two-month period. It then will land in New Zealand.

May there be many MORE CCP Officials saying "STOP THE PERSECUTION OF FALUN GONG"

“The suppression against Falun Gong is in fact suppression against all people. It needs to be stopped immediately and victims should be given state compensation,” said Wang. Wang suggested that the authority “send out a representative to talk to Falun Gong and claim criminal liability against the decision maker of the suppression."

China High Level Official Openly Advocates Cessation of Falun Gong Persecution

Wang Zhaojun, standing member of the Anhui Province Political Consultative Commission, recently wrote an open letter to Chinese leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao stating that (persecution of) Falun Gong is the most urgent issue for China.

Wang pointed out in the letter that the most urgent issue is to stop the persecution against Falun Gong and provide state compensation for the victims. After Jia Jia, a Shanxi provincial technology official, Wang is the second high level CCP official to call for the stop of the persecution against Falun Gong.

In his 400,000 word open letter, Wang talked about various “bombs” that exist in Chinese society— the damage to the environment and natural resources behind the over-heating economy; the bubble in the real estate market, reform of state enterprises and social injustice; governmental media suppression and the media’s breach of duty; the Taiwan issue and China’s political reform; policies of political reforms, etc.

Wang thinks political reform is inevitable. He calls on Hu and Wen to implement political reform, allow freedom of speech, free all political prisoners, open the gate to the return of overseas democratic activists to build a democratic China together, “I hope there will be a Gorbachev or Yeltsin in China!”

Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong Immediately

In his open letter, Wang says, “Freedom of belief is a universal value and is regulated in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and China’s Constitution. However, after the Tiananmen Massacre, in order to continue the one party dictatorship, Deng Xiaoping’s successors listed all non-communist organizations as ‘unstable elements’ that needed to be ‘eliminated before budding.’

“They made an example of Falun Gong, a popular qigong practice at the time. Those [practitioners] who tried to explain themselves were regarded by the government as highly disrespectful of the authority and would be suppressed using all means.” “The suppression against Falun Gong is in fact suppression against all people. It needs to be stopped immediately and victims should be given state compensation,” said Wang. Wang suggested that the authority “send out a representative to talk to Falun Gong and claim criminal liability against the decision maker of the suppression.

“I am only suggesting, and the purpose of my suggestion is to end the persecution against Falun Gong as quickly as possible, so China’s progression in democracy can move forward quickly.”

Emergence of a Chinese Gorbachev or Yeltsin

Wang points out in his letter that China’s society blocks human rights and the ideas of human rights. This is why things like child slave workers in brick factories can happen.

The Chinese government is short of support and supervision from the people and a counteracting force from society. “The current system and regime do not represent the people. If the leader who imposes and exists under this system and regime cannot lead his people to reform, it will be the biggest misfortune of the country,” said Wang.

In the end, Wang said that this is a historical time to create great people, “I hope there will be a Gorbachev or Yeltsin in China!”

Wang Zhaojun’s Background

According to Xinhua News, Wang graduated from the Beijing Electric Power College (currently the North China Electric Power University) in 1982. In 1983, he founded the Zhaojun Food Company that made bread in Anhui Province.

Later he founded Zhaojun Light Industry Research Institute to produce yogurt and Zhaojun Cola. The company also made the first ever “all purpose blown plastic molding machine” in China, which was exported to over thirty countries in the world.

In 1988, Zhaojun Cola won the gold medal at the first China Food Expo. The Zhaojun Light Industry Research Institute later became the Anhui Guobao Group Co. Wang, chairman of the company, was elected the standing member of the Anhui Province Political Consultative Commission.

In 2002, Wang was chosen the outstanding private technology entrepreneur in China by the National Industrial and Commercial Federation.

For those critics who don't understand why Falun Gong is everywhere ; For those Chinese expats who only believe that Falun Gong seeks to embarrass the Chinese communist party (Ccp);and for jiang zemin and those 5 evil men in the politburo who started and maintain this persecution and cannot believe that Falun Gong has not been nor can ever be eradicated this blog is for you.

I do understand and see quite clearly all the HR’s issues in the world. But for this blog lets keep on track and not go looking at all the other Human Rights issues in the world lets just deal with this issue here and now.

Recently the democratic world was outraged by the Burmese Juntas atrocities and wanted the Ccp to push for change in Burma. But why would the unelected rulers of the Ccp who are so fearful of Falun Gong, students uprising pushing for democracy or Buddhist monks care about students and monks in Burma.

Thru the Ccp’s refusal to call for a halt to the slaughter in Burma the world is waking up to the fact as long as China is led along by a strict totalitarian communist regime who murders anyone that does not toe the party line then we will have trouble maintaining international peace and unity.

As Falun Gong practitioners who have been slandered by a huge propaganda campaign that began in 1999 that has reached all throughout China and the rest of the world as well as a inhumane persecution that rival and even surpasses Nazi‘s persecution against the Jewish population, Falun Gong practitioners have a universal right to clarify the facts to those who have been poisoned by this slander. We have a right to calmly peacefully and completely with in the law appeal to all organisations governments and countries to condemn this persecution. Now what is wrong with that?

What's made this hard is the secrecy and inability to get reliable information in and out of China owing to the heavily censored and controlled avenues of all multi media by the Ccp.

So we have increasingly and within the international and each countries law peacefully and rationally exposed this persecution and the reason why this persecution is happening which involves the worlds people understanding the previously unknown but true history and unchanged nature of the Ccp.

Our starting point is completely different to what you may think .We do not want to murder anyone or hurt anyone nor do we want power nor do we desire to have anything to do with politics.

Politicians are the people who make the decisions and can help change this situation so we speak to them. When the media did not report our findings or the UN or Amnesty’s findings then we had to ask why. This is what we found.

Corruption is everywhere especially when it involves money and the world’s conscience has been corrupted by the invitation to partake in the meteoric rise of Chinas economy in exchange for not asking questions and instead turning a blind eye to all the atrocities that only a totalitarian communist regime can keep on committing.

Outside of China with 30 million Falun Gong practitioners in 70 countries all around the world with the one aim and one heart - to stop the persecution, we have been very successful in getting our information out there.