The Age (Australia): No medals for China in human rights

August 6, 2007

The awarding of the 2008 Olympic Games to China was an acknowledgment of the country's dynamic economic progress and its emergence as a world power to be reckoned with. Implicit in this decision was the understanding that China would prove itself worthy of the International Olympic Committee's vote of confidence by joining the community of nations that promote and protect human rights.

With just a year to go until the August 8 opening ceremony at the Birds Nest national stadium, the world has a right to be disappointed, if not outraged. Having the honor of hosting this great sports event has not led China to change the manner in which it deals with civil rights, domestic protest and freedom of speech. While there has been some easing of restrictions on foreign media ahead of the Games, the Chinese leadership has continued to crack down on domestic media, non-government organizations, the Internet and those it regards as dissidents.

Free speech continues to be a concept and not a reality. In what is seen as a pointed warning to the local media in general, it has closed websites and newsletters, some of them longstanding, and purged journalists and editors whom it regards as too liberal. It has also prevented critics from traveling overseas, continued its brutal repression of the Falun Gong movement and executed more people than the rest of the world put together.

While China is certainly improving its image in some parts of the Third World though its generous and non-interventionist loan and aid programs, its human rights abuses in Tibet and its complicity in the Darfur crisis keep it in the firing line for international human rights activists. Not surprisingly, these activists see the Beijing Olympics as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to highlight China's ongoing human rights abuses and to campaign for a greater respect of the fundamental norms and principles that underpin civil society.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said the Olympics would be a force for good in China. That hope is yet to be realized.