Protests Halt Paris Torch Relay
• Police officers apprehend a pro-Tibet activist waving the Tibetan flag during the Olympic torch relay Monday in Paris. Security officials extinguished the Olympic torch four times Monday as chaotic protests against China's policies on human rights and Tibet turned the relay into a jarring series of stops and starts.
Paris — Thousands of rowdy demonstrators forced cancellation of the last leg of the Olympic torch ceremony in Paris on Monday with repeated attacks on the procession, escalating international protests over China's human rights record ahead of the 2008 Games in Beijing this summer.
About 3,000 French police officers, some of them spraying Mace, sought to guard the 17-mile parade route but were often unable to stop demonstrators, many of them waving Tibetan flags, from surging onto the streets as torch carriers passed. At least three times, the torch was extinguished and the athletes retreated for protection into buses.
Protesters often used the most picturesque landmarks in Paris — the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysees, the Louvre Museum and Notre Dame Cathedral — as backdrops for screaming face-offs with police and large groups of flag-waving, pro-China supporters.
The torch ceremony is a rich Olympic tradition, and the growing movement against it has left some Olympic officials considering whether to cut back the 58-day pageant, during which the Olympic flame is to travel 85,000 miles through 21 countries.
“The International Olympic Committee may have a bigger problem when the torch relay continues, if we get more of these demonstrations,” Tove Paule, the head of Norway's Olympic Committee, told public broadcaster NRK after a meeting with Olympic officials in Beijing. “One will have to look at whether the plans need to be changed.”
In recent weeks, pressure has been mounting on the International Olympic Committee to respond to complaints from activists and politicians that China's lack of political freedom is incompatible with the values enshrined in the Olympic Charter. Officials have responded that they are concerned about Tibet but that the IOC is not a political organization and cannot strong-arm the host government.
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Thursday 10 Apr 2008 | Shana | Uncategorized
Are you sure? Perhaps they’ll work if they’re reissued, with stronger wording. Again.
Squeak like a mouse.
Nah - start with corporal punishment. Most people will think twice about fucking with the system after seeing the former CEO of Halliburton flogged in the street (of course, what the mob do to him afterwards will be up to them)
OH HAI, IM IN YOUR VOTING MACHINE, TESTING MY ELECTROMAGNET!
and the holy bush emperorship (is that a word) will get its holy war to end all wars