Posted on 08/15/2008 12:34:52 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Olympic repression and a gutless IOC
Published: August 14 2008 19:30 | Last updated: August 14 2008 19:30
It has taken less than a week for the contradictions between the reality of Communist party rule and China’s pre-Olympics promises of openness and press freedom to burst unpleasantly into the open.
Perhaps the party’s decision to order a pretty nine-year-old girl to lip-synch the patriotic singing of another girl deemed insufficiently cute for the opening ceremony can be dismissed as a misguided quest for artistic perfection.
Nor is the manhandling of journalists by police – as happened on Wednesday during a small pro-Tibet demonstration – an unusual event.
But the breathtaking cynicism of the Chinese authorities in declaring zones in three parks open for public protests and then persecuting, detaining or expelling from Beijing those who applied for permission to use them is a clear breach of the promises made by China to help win the bid to host these Olympics back in 2001.
The International Olympic Committee, meanwhile, is so eager not to offend the Chinese hosts that it has made no visible attempt to hold China to its word. Indeed its officials adhere so rigidly in public to the party line that everything is going smoothly that they make the Chinese Olympic authorities seem like mere novices in the arts of stonewalling and evasion.
Ping!
I’m glad this is happening. It is certainly taking the bloom off the rose for any observant person who was inclined to trust the Chicoms.
ChiCom Olympics. I told ya so!
The reason why those IOC fools chose Beijing in the first place was to stick it in our face, for we symbolize freedom and self-determination. Dick Pound and Rogge are the most arrogant anti-Americans on the IOC Board and throughout the years, “Dick” made some anti-US remarks that were in no way related to the Olympics.
When the Chicoms said a week before that the internet will be censored, incl. journalists, you heard not a peep from them. If this were held in say, Los Angeles, those 2 would throw a hissy fit almost everyday.
The IOC sounds very much like the UN.
I remember looking at a friend (after it was announced that China was awarded the 2008 Olympics) and said “All you have to do is murder hundreds of unarmed students and you can end up getting awarded the Olympics as a result”.
Headline: Olympic Journalists Avoid Reality.
What are they all so afraid of? Tell it like it is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.