Beijing or Bust
Posted on 04/07/2008 4:37:31 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
500 protest Olympic torch relay in Paris
By JEROME PUGMIRE and ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writers
49 minutes ago
Paris became the stage Monday for the latest round of global protests against China, with thousands of police deployed to protect the Olympic torch relay after chaos in London the day before.
About 500 protesters congregated at the Trocadero Square, which faces the Eiffel Tower, the relay's start-point. They carried signs reading "Save Tibet," and "Act fast, Tibet is dying." Across town, City Hall was draped with a banner reading, "Paris defends human rights around the world."
In London on Sunday, police repeatedly scuffled with protesters. One tried to grab the torch, while another tried to snuff out the flame with what appeared to be a fire extinguisher. Thirty-seven people were arrested.
Activists angry about China's human rights record and a recent crackdown on Tibet have been protesting along the torch route since the flame embarked on a 85,000-mile journey from Ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing for the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games.
Australia, which hosts the torch on April 24, announced Monday that it had changed the route for the relay through its capital, amid concerns about protests. Australian Capital Territory chief minister John Stanhope said plans had been changed but did not elaborate.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has even raised the possibility of signaling his discontent over China's human rights record, suggesting he might boycott the Olympic opening ceremony.
On Monday, just hours before the relay was set to begin in the French capital, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner reiterated that Sarkozy was "keeping all options open." Kouchner has said France opposes a full boycott of Games.
Beijing Olympic organizing committee spokesman Sun Weide denounced Sunday's protests as "sabotage."
"A few Tibetan separatists attempted to sabotage the torch relay in London, and we strongly denounce their disgusting behavior," said Sun.
Even before the chaos in London, Paris police had conceived an elaborate security plan to keep the torch in a safe "bubble."
French torchbearers will be encircled by several hundred officers, some in riot police vehicles and on motorcycles, others on skates and on foot. Three boats were also to patrol the Seine River, and a helicopter was to fly over Paris, police said.
About 80 athletes will carry the torch over a 17-mile route that starts at the Eiffel Tower, heads down the Champs-Elysees avenue toward City Hall, then crosses over the Seine before ending at the Charlety track and field stadium.
Pro-Tibet activists have threatened demonstrations, saying they would not reveal their exact plans until Monday.
The head of Reporters Without Borders, arrested in Greece last month for protesting during the flame-lighting ceremony there, said the group had altered its initial plans because of the heavy police turnout. Without giving away details, Robert Menard promised protests would nonetheless be "spectacular."
Menard also claimed France had caved in to demands from Beijing for tight security.
"The Chinese have made sure that for a few hours, Paris will look like Tiananmen Square," he said. "I think it's shameful."
Paris's mayor and French torchbearers, meanwhile, plan to show support for human rights during the relay.
Two-time French judo gold medalist David Douillet said torch carriers will wear badges reading "For a better world" — which French athletes hope to be permitted to wear in Beijing as well. He told RTL radio that he regretted the choice of China "because it isn't up to snuff on freedom of expression, on total liberty, and of course, on Olympic values."
Stephane Diagana, the 400-meter world champion in 1997 who is now president of France's national athletics league, will be the first to carry the torch. Diagana urged the International Olympic Committee to put more public pressure on China and added that he was glad to see athletes speaking up.
"Athletes need to keep their freedom of expression," he said last week. "Human rights are something that is so universal."
In Beijing Monday, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said he was "very concerned" about unrest in Tibet, his strongest comments to date on the political storm surrounding the Games.
"The International Olympic Committee has expressed its serious concern and calls for a rapid peaceful resolution in Tibet," Rogge said. He added that violent protests, "for whatever reason," are "not compatible with the values of the torch relay or the Olympic Games."
The flame's round-the-world trip is the longest in Olympic history, and it is meant to shine a spotlight on China's economic and political power — though activists have seized upon it as a backdrop for their cause.
The torch relay is expected to face demonstrations in San Francisco, New Delhi and possibly elsewhere on its 21-stop, six-continent tour before arriving in mainland China on May 4.
Ping!
PARIS (AP) - Officials interrupt the Olympic torch relay amid protests in Paris, extinguishing the flame and putting it aboard a bus.
Beijing or Bust
Olympic Torch Extinguished Amid Protests
AP[Monday, April 07, 2008 17:04]
Protests In Paris Prompt Move
PARIS, April 7 - Officials interrupted the Olympic torch relay amid protests in Paris on Monday, extinguishing the flame and putting it aboard a bus.
About 80 athletes were to jog it through the heart of the French capital, starting with a colorful ceremony at the Eiffel tower amid massive security.
There were some problems during the torch relay in London on Sunday from protesters angry over China’s human rights record.
One protester managed to evade a phalanx of police and security guards to almost snatch the torch out of a runner’s hands. Another tried to douse it with a fire extinguisher.
In Paris, the runner and the torch were being surrounded by a veritable moving fortress of police vehicles, motorcycles and hundreds of officers, some of them on roller skates.
Even before the relay began, French police sealed off the area around the Eiffel Tower and ordered protesters to put away their Tibetan flags.
The Olympic torch was expected to arrive in the United States this week as it hop-scotched around the world in the runup to the Summer Games in China.
It was expected to be in San Francisco on Wednesday, one of 21 stops on six continents and the only one in North America.
Snuffing out the flame and boycotting the games is only going to hurt your own country’s athletes. Your countrymen who have worked their entire lives for a chance at a medal will be the only ones punished because politics will go on as usual.
I love the comments from the sell-outs who are running with the torch, about how they are wearing an ambiguously worded button, so their actions promoting Chinese propaganda are all balanced out.
It is my fond hope that China and the Olympics wind up discrediting each other. The World would be a better place if the masks were ripped off both of these monsters.
blah, blah, blah...
We have to go to Berlin. Think of the children!
> It is my fond hope that China and the Olympics wind up discrediting each other. The World would be a better place if the masks were ripped off both of these monsters.
Well said! Bravo!
Well, it's like the old saying goes, "When the elephants fight it's the grass that gets trampled."
(French are ready?)
Yes, to put it on a bus
> Snuffing out the flame and boycotting the games is only going to hurt your own country’s athletes. Your countrymen who have worked their entire lives for a chance at a medal will be the only ones punished because politics will go on as usual.
Pifflewink and phooey. Any nation that spends a dime of its treasure sending its athletes to compete in the shonky-corrupt-and-thoroughly-discredited Olympics must be mad. I am disgusted that my country is: our Athletes deserve better than to have to compete with drug-addicted steroid cheats in a thoroughly dodgy place like Beijing at a thoroughly shonky competition like the Olympics.
The Olympics has long since had its halcyon days: it is long past time to extinguish that flame and move along.
Else I am mistaken, Canada is still paying for its Olympics in Montreal, and that was in 1976! I was thirteen in 1976 — my son’t age. ‘Strewth! What an appalling waste of national treasure that would have been. How many squillions? For a fortnite’s worth of dodgy sports? Crikey, has the world gone mad or something?
With China holding the games, it should be extinguished for good......kind of a metaphor for what they are doing to millions of people.
The best comment I heard so far about this is from the Rick and Bubba show this morning. It went something like this.
I guess what upsets me most is that the French are putting up more of a fight over the running of the torch than when the Nazis marched into Paris.
Excellent post! Right on the money.
The Chinese have killed more than the Nazis.
“The Chinese have killed more than the Nazis.”
I haven’t seen the numbers and don’t condone their policies, both are/were bad regimes. I was just repeating a humorous quote I heard on a radio show this morning as I stated in the section above the portion you quoted.
I just liked the knock on the French. :)
I have taken a one year vow of No French Bashing, which ends May 6, 2008, to celebrate the election of Sarkozy. Only 29 days to go!
(Though Sarkozy may have earned himself another year by marrying Carla Bruni... A country with a First Lady like that can’t be all bad!)
Good luck its such a target rich environment.
The Olympics is already discredited.
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