Metro Jacksonville

Here it comes...  There should be plenty to talk about.  The event, the athletes, pollution, politics, the coverage...

How about I start with censorship...


IOC agrees to Internet blocking at the Games
By Andrew Jacobs

Wednesday, July 30, 2008
BEIJING: The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages - politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.

On Wednesday - two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games - the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.

Gosper said that he regretted the limitations but that "IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related."

A government spokesman initially suggested the problems originated with the site hosts, but on Wednesday, he acknowledged that journalists would not have unfettered Internet use during the Games, which begin Aug. 8.

"It has been our policy to provide the media with convenient and sufficient access to the Internet," said Sun Weide, the chief spokesman for the Beijing Olympics organizing committee. "I believe our policy will not affect reporters' coverage of the Olympic games."

The Chinese government and the IOC had repeatedly suggested up until two weeks ago that the 20,000 journalists covering the games would have full Internet access. Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic committee president, declared that the foreign media would be able to report and publish its work freely in China and that the Internet would be uncensored.

The revelation that politically sensitive Web pages will be off limits to foreign reporters comes at a time of growing skepticism about the government's commitment to pledges made when it won the right to stage the games in 2001: that it would improve its record on human rights and provide athletes with clean air.

Despite a litany of measures that include restricting private vehicles and shuttering factories, Beijing's skyline in recent days has been shrouded in a thick haze, prompting some hang-wringing over whether the government can deliver on its promise of a "blue skies" Olympics.

In recent months, human rights advocates have accused Beijing of stepping up the detention and surveillance of those it fears could disrupt the Games. On Tuesday, President George W. Bush privately met with five Chinese dissidents at the White House to drive home his dissatisfaction with the pace of change. Bush, who leaves for the opening ceremonies in just over a week, also pressed China's foreign minister to ease political repression.

Concerns about free access to the Internet in Beijing had intensified Tuesday, when Western journalists working at the main press center in Beijing said they could not get to Amnesty International's Web site to see the group's critical report on China's failure to improve its human rights record ahead of the Olympics.

Journalist groups complained last week about treatment from security officials while trying to interview people waiting in line for Olympic tickets, according to Bloomberg News.

Jonathan Watts, president of The Foreign Correspondents Club of China, said he was disappointed that Beijing had failed to honor its agreement to temporarily remove the elaborate firewall that prevents ordinary Chinese from fully using the Internet. "Obviously if reporters can't access all the sites they want to see, they can't do their jobs," he said. "Unfortunately, such restrictions are normal for reporters in China, but the Olympics were supposed to be different."

Sandrine Tonge, the IOC media relations coordinator, said the organization would press the Chinese authorities to reconsider the limits.

How to circumvent censors

Reporters Without Borders is encouraging journalists covering the Beijing Olympics to skirt censorship with tips on how to get around firewalls, lock computer files and find safe translators, The Associated Press reported from Paris.

In a guide published on the Internet on Wednesday, the organization advised reporters to conduct phone calls and write e-mail messages with the knowledge that they might be monitored.

The new guide will probably help only journalists who have not yet left for Beijing: The press freedom group says its Web site, www.rsf.org, remains blocked in China. The country has backed away from a promise to lift all Internet blocks on foreign media.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/30/business/olymedia.php

As I wasnt alive in the 1930s, I dont know for certain, but this feels very much how I would have expected Hitlers olympics to feel. Its like there is a huge pawl over everything.

Welcome to the world of communism...such restrictions are expected and no surprise.

Have you seen video of the pollution??  OMG!  They are now closing factories and reducing driving to even- odd days...lol

China adds rules to cut pollution
By Jim Yardley

Thursday, July 31, 2008
BEIJING: Chinese environmental regulators unveiled new, stricter emergency pollution control measures for the Olympic Games on Thursday that would close more factories and expand traffic restrictions if air quality failed to meet approved standards, once the competition began next week.

The measures, posted on the Web site of the State Environmental Protection Administration, would be invoked during the Games only in the case of "extremely unfavorable weather conditions" - for example, hot, humid air without winds to disperse pollution.

The plan would broaden existing temporary restrictions in Beijing and also include the nearby municipality of Tianjin, as well as surrounding Hebei Province. In all, the new measures would encompass a region of more than 91 million people.

Pollution has been a persistent concern for the Games, even as Chinese officials have promised to deliver clean air by imposing restrictions on cars and factories.

Those measures began July 1, when more than 300,000 high-polluting vehicles were barred from the streets in Beijing. Then on July 20, the city instituted driving restrictions in which motorists were limited to driving on either odd or even days, depending on the last number on their license plate.

The traffic restrictions have removed about two million vehicles from city streets. In addition, many factories in Beijing and outlying areas reduced production while most major construction sites were closed.

But the expected radiant, blue skies have yet to appear. For four consecutive days, Beijing's gray, stifling skies failed to meet China's national air quality standards, which are more lenient than those in the United States.

The situation has improved in recent days as colder air and rainfall have washed out some of the pollution, even as the skies remain mostly milky or gray.

"I'm optimistic," said Zhu Tong, a Peking University professor who is an air quality adviser for the Olympics. "If it keeps raining like this, it would be great."

Zhu added: "If I were an athlete, I would not be concerned."

This week, China's state media warned that more restrictions were possible and cautioned that one proposal called for removing 90 percent of vehicles from the roads in Beijing. The plan unveiled Thursday is not so severe; it maintains the odd-even restrictions but adds a new prohibition that bans driving on days that match the last number on a motorist's license plate. (Anyone with a plate ending in 9 could not drive on Aug. 9 or Aug. 19, while other motorists with odd-numbered plates could still do so.) This would remove another 10 percent of all vehicles from the streets.

The plan would also suspend production at 105 more factories in Beijing and at another 56 coal-fired power plants, chemical plants and other industries in nearby Tianjin, a municipality with more than 11 million people. Motorists there also would be subjected to the odd-even restrictions.

Meanwhile, in Hebei Province, motorists in major cities would face odd-even driving restrictions in the daytime and early evening. The province would also suspend or reduce operations at another 61 factories.

The additional factory shutdowns could be an important step. Many smaller factories that use solvents generate volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, that can contribute to ozone and smoggy skies.

"For Beijing city, a key variable for determining smog levels is VOCs," said Deborah Seligsohn, China climate program director of the World Resource Institute. "If you cut the car levels without cutting VOCs, you can end up with the problems they've faced in the last week. Cutting over 200 factories sounds like the right move."

The leaden skies have hovered over Beijing as the initial wave of an expected 20,000 foreign journalists has begun to descend on the city. They have responded by sending out photographs or television footage of the Forbidden City or the new Olympic Village shrouded in gray.

Environmental officials have argued that pollution levels have actually dropped by 20 percent in July and tried to counter the photographic images by arguing that much of the gray is not pollution but just weather.

"Pictures cannot reflect reality," contended Du Shaozhong, the deputy director of the Beijing environmental bureau, in comments in a report from Xinhua, the government news agency, posted on the state environmental agency's Web site. "They are not accurate. I really urge you not to use photos to base your assessment of air quality."



http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/31/asia/beijing.php

http://www.youtube.com/v/12llTOryD30

Lets see, you award the olympic games to probably the most repressive government in the world.  You allow them to restrict free speech between non citizens and the outside world during the games.  Pollution is out of control.  You have a jingoistic population that borders on the paranoid concerning criticism.  A good time was had by all

in our time there, at the end of each day you would have to blow your nose because it was difficult to breathe otherwise.  and the mucus was always grey and black.  pretty disgusting.

Severe air and water pollution are the norm in most of Asia.  I have been to many countries in Asia and the levels of pollution accepted in this part of the world is astounding.  A severe air pollution day in L.A. is a clean air day in many Asian coutries...

Then again...baby steps?

Quote
BEIJING, China (AP) -- Olympic organizers unblocked some Internet sites at the main press center and media venues Friday while others remained off limits for journalists covering the Beijing games.

The move falls short of the "free and unfettered access" the organizers and Chinese officials had promised for months. However, it was an improvement from earlier in the week when sites for the likes of Amnesty International or Tiananmen Square could not be opened.

Senior International Olympic Committee officials met late into the night Thursday with their Chinese counterparts and said they reached an agreement to unblock sites, although the IOC statement said the details were still being formulated.

"We trust them to keep their promise," the International Olympic Committee said.

Kevan Gosper, the press commission head of the IOC, said the IOC and Chinese officials were working toward "unblocking sites that we believe were unreasonably blocked."

Full Article here:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/08/01/olympics.internet.ap/index.html?iref=werecommend (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/08/01/olympics.internet.ap/index.html?iref=werecommend)

Quote from: civil42806 on August 01, 2008, 08:31:14 AM
Lets see, you award the olympic games to probably the most repressive government in the world.  You allow them to restrict free speech between non citizens and the outside world during the games.  Pollution is out of control.  You have a jingoistic population that borders on the paranoid concerning criticism.  A good time was had by all

Yeah, I'd say the Olympic committee made a stellar choice!

Quote from: civil42806 on August 01, 2008, 08:31:14 AM
Lets see, you award the olympic games to probably the most repressive government in the world.  You allow them to restrict free speech between non citizens and the outside world during the games.  Pollution is out of control.  You have a jingoistic population that borders on the paranoid concerning criticism.  A good time was had by all

Hahaha, YES!

Is 40 the new 30 for Olympians?


Sun Aug 3, 2008 6:56am EDT
By Belinda Goldsmith

BEIJING (Reuters) - When Laurie Lever turned 60 last October, the last thing on his mind was retirement with the Australian show jumper focused on riding in his first Olympics.

Lever is one of a growing number of older athletes competing in the Olympics rather than watching from the stands with Japanese horseman Hiroshi Hoketsu leading the pack at Beijing, returning to the Games after a 44-year break aged 67.

U.S. swimmer Dara Torres, who is 41 and has a two-year-old daughter, created a media stir by making it to her fifth Olympics as the oldest American to swim at the Games.

While Olympians are revered for athleticism, discipline and determination, modern competitors are showing experience is also an asset and sporting careers can be extended using new training techniques and funded with contracts, endorsements and subsidies.

"We are a fitter generation," said Lever, whose appearance on Ashleigh Drossel Dan in the show jumping in Hong Kong is believed to make him the oldest debutant at the 2008 Games.

Olympics historian David Wallechinsky, who has written many Olympics reference books, said the average age of Olympians has been increasing as athletes turned professional.

"Before you were lucky to be in one, maybe two Olympics as you had to go and earn a living," said Wallechinsky, vice-president of the International Society of Olympic Historians.

"But now athletes can make a living through marketing and endorsements so they can extend their careers."

Sports academics are not surprised by the ability of athletes to remain competitive longer and expect increasing number of over 40s to stay competing at top level sport as training techniques and technology continue to improve.

OLDEST COMPETITOR

Hoketsu, who is based in Germany, has played down the fuss about him competing at the age of 67 on his mare Whisper although he has referred to himself as "the hope for old men".

Hoketsu may be the oldest competitor in the 2008 Games but the title of oldest Olympian is held by Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who collected his sixth medal at the 1920 Antwerp Games aged 72 years and 280 days.

Hoketsu is also not the only 2008 competitor over 60. Add to the list Canadian show jumper Ian Millar, 61, competing in his ninth Olympics.

There are many athletes well into their 40s and 50s in other sports besides equestrian. Canadian trap shooter Susan Nattrass is 57, Canadian fencer Luan Jujie is 50, and Australian sailor Iain Murray is making his Olympics debut aged 50.

Americans Richard Johnson, archery, is 52, Libby Callahan, shooting, is 56, and British horseman Nick Skelton is 50.

French cyclist Jeannie Longo is competing in her eighth Games at the age of 49 and it is the second Olympics for Israeli marathon runner Haile Satayin whose passport says he is 53.

Dr. Michael Joyner, an anesthesiologist at the U.S. Mayo Clinic who studies the effects of ageing on athletes, said normal "physiological" ageing starts at 30 but athletes can delay this until their late 30s or 40s with prolonged, intense training.

He said lab data showed that for physiological factors associated with endurance sports the decline is about 10 percent per decade starting at 30 but this can be halved with continued hard training, especially if it remained intense.

"If you look at top performers in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, the volume of training (hours per day) is sometimes down, but they keep the intensity high. They usually also do things to prevent age-associated declines in muscle mass," he said.

But Joyner said that while all elite athletes had some physical gifts it was also their will to win and ability to perform under pressure that made them succeed.

"All things being equal the person who can put forth a maximum effort and at the same time relax has a real edge. A lot of it is learning how to compete in a relaxed way when the pressure is on," he told Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idUSPEK8600320080803?feedType=RSS&feedName=sportsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Defiant Chinese Harassed, Jailed Before Olympics
Crackdown Defies Vow Beijing Made to Be Host

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 2, 2008; A01

ZHENGDING, China -- Behind the gray walls and barbed wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo.

Their indefinite detainment, relatives and neighbors said, is the price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to host the Beijing Games. Trouble, the Communist Party has made clear, will not be permitted.

"My bet is the authorities won't let them out until after the Olympics," said Wang Xiahua, a veteran anti-government agitator from this farm town 180 miles southwest of Beijing and a supporter of the imprisoned farmers.

The Olympic Games have become the occasion for a broad crackdown against dissidents, gadflies and malcontents this summer. Although human rights activists say they have no accurate estimate of how many people have been imprisoned, they believe the figure to be in the thousands.

The crackdown comes seven years after the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee declared that staging the Games in the Chinese capital would "not only promote our economy but also enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights."

Now, human rights have been set back rather than enhanced, activists say.

"The Olympics have reversed the clock," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based specialist for Human Rights in China.

Another foreign human rights advocacy group, Amnesty International, came to a similar conclusion in a report issued Monday titled "The Olympics Countdown -- Broken Promises."

"By continuing to persecute and punish those who speak out for human rights, the Chinese authorities have lost sight of the promises they made when they were granted the Games seven years ago," said Roseann Rife, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific deputy director. "The Chinese authorities are tarnishing the legacy of the Games."

The repressive atmosphere has intensified in part because senior Communist Party officials seem to be just as determined to prevent embarrassing protests -- which could be televised -- as they are to avert terrorist attacks during the Olympics. In exhortations to security forces, Public Security Ministry commanders and Xi Jinping, the senior Communist Party leader in charge of Olympic preparations, repeatedly have said that police must block any attempt to damage China's image.

Despite these concerns, President Bush and many other world leaders have accepted China's invitation to attend the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday. After saying for months that the Games should be viewed only as a sporting event, Bush met with Chinese rights activists Tuesday and said he would use the opportunity to remind President Hu Jintao of U.S. support for human rights. The Foreign Ministry criticized his gesture, calling it interference in China's internal affairs. But his decision to attend was still being interpreted as endorsement of China's contention that the Olympic Games are not an appropriate stage for human rights appeals.

Bequelin, the researcher at Human Rights in China, said the opportunity for foreign governments to use the Olympics to pressure China on human rights has passed in any case, because world leaders are likely to be reluctant to embarrass Hu and other party leaders with strong stands during China's moment in the sun.

"It is a new low for the international community to see all these state leaders going to Beijing without saying anything about the repressive environment in which the Games are being held," he added.

The Olympics were far from the minds of the Zhengding farmers when they took on authorities a little more than a year ago. As is frequently the case in China, their problem was a decision by local authorities to seize their land to make way for economic development, specifically an expansion of the airport for the nearby city of Shijiazhuang. The land was taken, they said, but the full compensation never made its way into their pockets.

After a series of protests, 10 of the disgruntled farmers were arrested in June 2007. They were tried in a local court and convicted in November of illegal gatherings and disrupting social stability. But in January, relatives said, an appeals court in Shijiazhuang overturned the convictions, citing lack of evidence, and they were released pending a retrial.

In releasing them, police also warned that the protests had to stop, particularly during the Olympic period. When they refused to back down -- and after a Beijing reporter inquired about their fate -- the 10 were arrested again last month.

One took sick and had to be hospitalized, neighbors said, and another was released after convincing authorities he would be quiet. The other eight were confined to the Zhengding Detainment Center on the edge of town, where a notice posted at the entrance says that during the Olympic period, their families cannot visit or bring gifts, "except cash."

Human rights activists said many of those imprisoned during the Olympic crackdown are being held for short periods without formal legal proceedings.

"Thousands of people, including petitioners who have gone to Beijing seeking justice from the government, have been swept up in efforts to clean up the city before the games," Amnesty International said in its report issued Monday.

Traveling to Beijing to complain has a long history in China, dating from imperial times and carried on since the Communist Party took over in 1949. Chinese upset with their local party and government leaders almost invariably express belief that national leaders would solve the problem if only they were aware of it.

With increasing urgency, however, the central government has urged local party officials to solve such problems on the spot to reduce the number of people showing up in Beijing.

As a result, party officials in Zhengding and other such towns have organized a series of meetings recently to receive citizen complaints. But the other side of the coin has been reinforced determination by security forces to prevent travel by dissidents determined to visit the capital anyway.

Li Zijing, a 46-year-old surgeon who complained that a hospital in Jiangxi province botched his kidney treatment, said he went to Beijing in March for the second time to petition for redress. But Jiangxi officials took him into custody and made him return, he said, and since the beginning of July four or five people guard his house lest he try again.

"No matter where we go, they follow us," he said. "They said they were hired by the hospital, and surveillance will last for the next four months. It is said the Olympics are approaching so they worry about us petitioners."

Security forces seem determined to prevent those and other dissidents from finding an echo in the media, human rights activists said, particularly the foreign media that have been reinforced in China during the Olympic period. To do so, they said, authorities have devised a panoply of measures ranging from warnings, intimidation, surveillance, travel restrictions and house arrest to outright detention.

A well-known human rights activist in Beijing, for instance, sent this cellphone message Wednesday afternoon: "The police come to my place, waiting outside, and I do not know what they want to do with me." The activist was detained for 18 days last month on suspicion of planning protests during the Olympics. This time, she said, the police went away after she refused to leave home.

Similarly, Yuan Weijing, the wife of imprisoned activist Chen Guangcheng, said the number of guards watching her home in the Shangdong province town of Linyi has risen from 10 to more than 40. "Because of the Olympics approaching, people like me -- nothing more than a rights defender's wife -- are being specially protected by the government," she said in a statement disseminated by Human Rights in China.

Two longtime activists were put under detention last week in what amounted to unexplained extensions of earlier terms.

Du Daobin, a dissident Internet writer, was ordered back to jail July 24 after a court revoked an earlier suspended sentence just as the probationary period was about to end. Authorities said he had violated terms of the probation by posting comments on the Internet and receiving unauthorized visitors at his Hebei province home.

Ye Guozhu, a housing rights activist in Beijing, was detained last Saturday on suspicion of disturbing public order just as he was scheduled to be released after serving an earlier jail term connected to his anti-government agitation.

Ye's brother, Ye Guoqiang, told Human Rights in China that authorities notified the family on the day of his scheduled release.

"Ye's brother said authorities refused to explain how Ye Guozhu could gather a crowd to disturb public order while in prison," the rights group reported. "Ye Guoqiang believes they intend to block possible foreign media contact with his brother and will keep him in custody at least until after the Beijing Olympic Games have ended."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103717_pf.html

Quote from: jbm32206 on July 31, 2008, 08:01:18 AM
Welcome to the world of communism...such restrictions are expected and no surprise.

Yeah I agree, wouldn't they all know this going in? Why dig up trouble anyway? Just cover the games and leave, why stir up issues?

Welcome to the world of communism...such restrictions are expected and no surprise.

Yeah I agree, wouldn't they all know this going in? Why dig up trouble anyway? Just cover the games and leave, why stir up issues?


Maybe because they are the press?

Quote from: Coolyfett on August 03, 2008, 05:20:53 PM

Quote from: jbm32206 on July 31, 2008, 08:01:18 AM
Welcome to the world of communism...such restrictions are expected and no surprise.

Yeah I agree, wouldn't they all know this going in? Why dig up trouble anyway? Just cover the games and leave, why stir up issues?

Because it should be exposed...  Many think Marx, Mao, and Lenin are cool......... They are not.

Apparently Muslim extremists dont like the Communist Chinese either...


Chinese border assault kills 16
Sixteen Chinese policemen have been killed in an attack on a border post in the restive Muslim region of Xinjiang, state media say.

Two attackers reportedly drove up to the post in a rubbish truck and threw two grenades, before moving in to attack the policemen with knives.

The attack came four days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Both attackers were captured during the raid near the city of Kashgar, Xinhua state news agency reported.

Kashgar, known as Kashi in Chinese, is some 2,500 miles (4,000km) from Beijing, near the border with Tajikistan.

Xinhua said the attack happened at about 0800 (0000 GMT), as the policemen were jogging outside the compound.

Fourteen policemen died at the scene and two on the way to hospital. Another 16 policemen were hurt.

One of the attackers was reported to have been injured in the leg.

Xinjiang, in the north-west of the country, is home to the Muslim Uighur people. Uighur separatists have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule for decades.

Human rights groups say Beijing is suppressing the rights of Uighurs.

The BBC's Daniel Griffiths in Beijing says China has spoken in the past of what it calls a terrorist threat from Muslim militants in Xinjiang, but it has provided little evidence to back up its claims.

A spokesman for the Beijing Games Organising Committee told Xinhua he was confident that Olympic participants and spectators would be safe.

"China has focused on strengthening security and protection around Olympic venues and at the Olympics Village, so Beijing is already prepared to respond to any threat," Sun Weide was quoted as saying.

Warnings

Last week, a senior Chinese army officer warned that Islamic separatists were the biggest danger to the Olympics.


CHINA'S UIGHURS
Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly in Xinjiang
Made bid for independent state in 1940s
Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991
Uighurs worried about Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture 

Col Tian Yixiang of the Olympics security command centre told reporters the main threat came from the "East Turkestan terrorist organisation".

The term is used by the government to refer to Islamist separatists in Xinjiang.

Late last month a group called the Turkestan Islamic Party said it had blown up buses in Shanghai and Yunnan, killing five people.

But China denied that the explosions were acts of terrorism.

The Washington-based IntelCenter, which monitors terrorism communications, said the Turkestan Islamic Party had released a video entitled Our Blessed Jihad in Yunnan.

In it, the group's leader, Commander Seyfullah, said it was responsible for several attacks and threatened the Olympics.

"The Chinese have haughtily ignored our warnings," IntelCenter quoted him as saying.

"The Turkestan Islamic Party volunteers... have started urgent actions."

'Evicted'

In Beijing, Chinese police and a small group of protesters clashed in Qianmen district, near Tiananmen Square.

The demonstrators complained that they had been evicted from their homes to make way for the reconstruction of the district.

The Olympic torch is due to be carried round a stadium in Mianyang, Sichuan province, which was used to house thousands of people forced from their homes by a devastating earthquake in May.

The torch will go on to the provincial capital in Chengdu on Tuesday before heading to Beijing for the opening ceremony on Friday.




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7540138.stm

As an unfortunate bookend to BridgeTroll's opening post in this thread, here's a related follow-up to the whole situation, courtesy of the NY Times.  Lengthy, but worth the read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/sports/olympics/12china.html?partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/sports/olympics/12china.html?partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss)

Quote
Would-Be Protesters Find the Olympics Failed to Expand Free Speech in Beijing

By EDWARD WONG
Published: September 11, 2008

BEIJING â€" Eleven people came here to the capital on Monday, bent on protesting property losses. They were experienced, having been to Beijing before to petition the central government. They were familiar, all coming from the same town and having been locked up in the same jails. They were crafty, flying up on two planes from a third city, rather than taking the train from their own, and lying low for two days before trying anything.

But they never had a chance.

Some of the group left their hide-out, an apartment in a northern neighborhood, on Wednesday to carry out a protest outside the main Olympic stadium, called the Bird’s Nest. But there was no protest, and they have not been heard from. Later, another protester, Huang Liuhong, stepped outside with her supporters, only to find some 50 police officers from her hometown. They told her they had been watching her and the others ever since they arrived.

That night, Ms. Huang, 36, speaking by cellphone, said that she and her older sister were being driven back south to their city, Liuzhou, and that a policewoman had just stripped them naked so they would not try to run away.

“We’re surrounded by police, and there are more coming to meet us,” she said.

The case of Ms. Huang and the other disgruntled residents of Liuzhou, who came here to hold demonstrations over four cases of property seizure or destruction, shows that when it comes to freedom of protest, the Olympics changed little in the Chinese capital. The Chinese government still requires citizens to register to protest, and it has yet to grant any permits for people to hold lawful protests in three designated parks in Beijing.

Before the Olympics, the central government ordered local governments to keep protesters or troublemakers from coming to Beijing, and the vigilance of the police officers from Liuzhou shows that that order still stands.

The Paralympics run through Wednesday, and perhaps some restrictions will ease afterward. But citizens like Ms. Huang remain skeptical that there has been any real increase in freedom of speech, despite the hopes of the International Olympic Committee that awarding the Games to China would encourage the government to improve its free speech and human rights record.

“Our government is one of all cheaters,” Ms. Huang said in an interview in an apartment in northern Beijing hours before being detained. “This society isn’t ruled by law, but by people’s whims.”

Before the Games began on Aug. 8, the central government announced the opening of three protest parks in Beijing. But the government went on to detain people who applied to protest â€" including two frail women in their late 70s who were sentenced to “re-education through labor” for wanting to demand more compensation for the seizure of their homes.

That incident was echoed on Tuesday when the police in Tiananmen Square dragged away an elderly woman who was trying to hold a sit-in there, according to Ming Pao, a newspaper based in Hong Kong. The woman lived in a village near Beijing, and she was accusing the village chief of persecuting her, the newspaper reported. Police officers bundled her into a squad car.

The people from Liuzhou, a midsize industrial city in Guangxi Autonomous Region, had traveled to Beijing on Monday with high hopes.

Ms. Huang â€" on her 11th visit in 16 months â€" intended to go to Tiananmen Square with her 4-month-old son to unfurl the white banner she had prepared: “Corruption of the Judiciary Is Terrible Corruption.” And she planned to jump into the moat of the Forbidden City beneath the portrait of Mao.

Another petitioner, Chen Huiwen, 54, said in an interview before she left for the Bird’s Nest: “I’m asking for justice. I want to protest and to march.”

Ms. Chen is accusing a real estate company and the Liuzhou government of colluding with a criminal gang to drive her and eight family members illegally from their home last year. The house was torn down for a development project.

Ms. Chen said her husband, Yu Huojing, came to Beijing several times to petition officials after a local court refused to hear their case. In July, Mr. Yu was picked up by the police as soon as he stepped off the train and was sent to a detention center in Liuzhou, Ms. Chen said. He was held for 51 days.

“A government official said, ‘The Olympics are coming,’ ” Ms. Chen said.

On Aug. 15, in the middle of the Olympics and while her husband was still in detention, Ms. Chen arrived in Beijing by train and went straight to Tiananmen Square. She said her goal was to jump into the moat in front of the Forbidden City in an act of protest, as Ms. Huang planned to do. But Ms. Chen said officers grabbed her as soon as she climbed onto the railing of a curved footbridge that traverses the moat beneath the portrait of Mao.

“I was held in a jail in the Tiananmen area, then I was sent back to Liuzhou, where I was detained for another nine days,” she said.

Another woman whose home was torn down, Zhong Ruihua, 62, flew up with her daughter to apply for a permit to protest in Purple Bamboo Park, one of the three designated zones.

She said they prepared an electronic application form on Tuesday night but had yet to e-mail it. They were too scared to apply in person. “We didn’t go in person because of course they’ll detain us,” she said.

Like the others, Ms. Zhong and her daughter walked out of the apartment on Wednesday and disappeared from the streets of Beijing. They are probably being sent back to Liuzhou.

The old man who was renting the apartment to the protesters was also picked up by the police. Sitting in a police station, he told a reporter by telephone that he was being charged with harboring criminals.