Beijing Wide Open

I tried to post this last Friday but had some trouble with my computer.

The torch relay in Tibet was not just a farce but a complete shame on the Chinese leadership, the IOC and everyone in the Olympic movement who allowed it to happen. During the official ceremony outside of the Potala palace the head of the Communist Party in Tibet vowed to “totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique.”

Until now I have avoided any comparisons to the Nazi Olympics in ‘36 but what happened in Lhasa was the same type of staged propaganda and an abuse of the Olympics of the worst kind.

Check out the coverage:

New York Times: Olympic Torch’s Tibet Visit Short and Political

Los Angeles Times: China parades Olympic torch in heavily guarded capital of Tibet

ABC News (Australia): Tensions simmering with Olympic torch in Tibet (includes video)

Globe and Mail (Canada): “Get on the Bus” (a blog entry about being on the official media tour)

Globe and Mail: Lhasa’s Monks all but vanish in Chinese crackdown

Here are a few reports from journalists who have been allowed into Lhasa on a closely-monitored official Chinese government tour:
Tibetan capital under lockdown for Olympic torch, Geoffrey York, Globe and Mail, June 20, 2008
Tibetan capital under tight guard for Olympic torch, Chris Buckley, Reuters, June 20, 2008
Inside Tibet’s capital, James Reynolds, BBC, June 20, 2008
Uneasy calm in Lhasa ahead of torch relay, Economic Times of India, June 20, 2008
Olympic flame on visit to isolated Tibet, Ken Teh, Associated Press, June 20, 2008

The Chinese authorities postponed the torch relay in Tibet again. It’s been hard to figure out exactly what the plan is now but it looks like the torch won’t go to Lhasa until this Saturday at the earliest.

Human Rights Watch slammed the IOC and China for the plan to take the Olympic torch to Tibet calling it “unconscionable and reckless” and saying “if Tibet is open to the torch, it must also be open to an international investigation, the media, and anyone who wishes to know what actually happened in March.”

The torch did go into East Turkestan (Xinjiang) today. East Turkestan is another occupied territory of China where the Chinese government is brutally oppressing eight million muslim Uighur people under the guise of “fighting terrorism.” There, knowing that the local people resent Beijing’s rule and do not consider themselves Chinese, the authorities just straight up told the people not to come out and watch the torch pass. Instead they recommended that everyone ” watches on the television from home.”

***To understand why this nun’s photo is here please read to the end of this post.

The Chinese authorities took the Olympic torch into Tibet today. It was paraded through a town in Gyalthang, an Eastern Tibetan area of Kham now administered under China’s Yunnan province. According to a Reuters article, “Olympic torch arrives in Tibetan areas amid tight security,” local residents said thousands of troops were deployed in the area and monks at one monastery were not allowed to go out:

“Security around the flame was extremely tight, hinting at how nervous the authorities are with reports of unrest and arrests continuing in Tibetan parts of China three months after anti-Beijing demonstrations turned violent in Lhasa, prompting the government to flood troops into the region.

At a monastery on the outskirts of town, some Buddhist monks said they had been forbidden from leaving during the torch run, while others were made to attend a sutra reading session that lasted from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. — right when the torch was passing.” Read more »

Chinese lawyers who offered voluntary legal support for Tibetans charged with involvement in the protests that erupted in Tibet in March have been denied renewal of their licenses. At least three of the original group of Chinese lawyers who offered their services to the Tibetans may now lose the ability to practice law in China.

At a news conference in Hong Kong yesterday, China Human Rights Lawyers’ Concern Group chairman Albert Ho identified the three lawyers as Teng Biao and Li Heping from Beijing and Zhang Jiankang from the northern city of Xian. Read more »

It’s been two weeks since the earthquake struck Tibet and China and the suffering continues to grow in both places. An aftershock yesterday caused at least two deaths, landslides and tens of thousands of houses to collapse. Torrential rainstorms are expected in the coming days and still most of the five million people homeless don’t have proper shelter. And then there are the dams. China’s Water Ministry admitted today that 69 dams may burst. The bad news seems never-ending.

Read more »

The Hong Kong authorities blocked 3 of my colleagues from entering the territory on the eve of the Olympic torch relay run. They were going to hold a press conference to focus attention on the deteriorating situation inside Tibet, which many are describing as reminiscent of the dark days of the cultural revolution, and show that taking the Olympic torch through Tibet at this time will certainly provoke protests and is already contributing to an increased climate of fear.

Despite this minor setback, we went ahead with the press conference as planned at 2pm Hong Kong time via live webcast with Tsering joining from Toronto and Matt from London.

You can watch the broadcast here: http://blog.studentsforafreetibet.org/live/

IOC allows China to take the torch through Tibet from Students for a Free Tibet on Vimeo.

I guess my Chinese friends flagged the “IOC: No Torch in Tibet” video enough times because Youtube took it down after more than 3,000 views saying “content inappropriate.” The same thing happened to the very original TV video footage of the Chinese shooting Tibetans at Nangpa Pass near Mt. Everest after it was viewed over 100,000 times.

A lot of crazy stuff gets posted on Youtube and doesn’t get taken down because Youtube cannot monitor it all and nobody cares enough to complain. But when it comes to pro-Tibet videos there’s an army of people just waiting to “flag” anything and everything they possibly can in the hopes that Youtube will remove it.

Not to worry, we’ll post that video in 100 other places. It’ll be back soon and many more people will see it. That’s the beauty of the internet and free societies - you cannot block people from the truth.

WARNING: This video includes graphic content.

The photos in this video are hard to look at. They are of Tibetans shot and killed inside Tibet over the past month. This is the reality of Chinese rule in Tibet and what Chinese authorities do to Tibetans who dare to protest. This is what we can expect if the IOC allows China to take the torch through Tibet in May and June. The IOC doesn’t seem to get it?! Maybe this video will help them see the reality.