Beijing 2008: what’s all the fuss about?

As a follow up to an article on politics and the Olympics by Kevin Bloor for Tutor2u’s digital Politics magazine First Past the Post, I thought I’d highlight some of the issues surrounding the Beijing Games

In today’s paper, John Amaechi, the British basketball star has said that Beijing athletes should speak out about human rights in China. Amaechi, who is acting as Amnesty International sporting ambassador to China, was interviewed by the Guardian:

“I would encourage athletes not to distract themselves by burying themselves in the facts and figures and legislation of China but simply to acknowledge that being an ambassador for human rights in China is the most Olympian thing to do. Anything less than that is not being a true Olympian no matter the colour of the medal that you hold up.”

Chinese officials promised that hosting the Olympics in China would see the country reform its human rights record:

Liu Jingmin, Vice-President of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee, said in 2001 that allowing Beijing to host the Games would “help the development of human rights”.

But there are still concerns with the Olympics only months away. To help readers understand why rights campaigners are uneasy about China hosting the Olympics I include a selection of stories from the Amnesty International website

Violence and discrimination against women
Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-trained lawyer, was sentenced in August to a prison term of four years and three months on charges of “damaging public property and gathering people to stop traffic”. He had been arbitrarily confined to his home since September 2005 in connection with his advocacy on behalf of women undergoing forced abortions in Shandong Province. On appeal, the guilty verdict was overturned and the case sent back to the lower court for retrial, but the lower court upheld the original sentence.

The death penalty
The death penalty continued to be used extensively to punish around 68 crimes, including economic and non-violent crimes. Based on public reports, AI estimated that at least 1,010 people were executed and 2,790 sentenced to death during 2006, although the true figures were believed to be much higher.

Xu Shuangfu, the leader of an unofficial Protestant group called “Three Grades of Servants”, was executed along with 11 others in November after being convicted of murdering 20 members of another group, “Eastern Lightning”, in 2003-4. Xu Shuangfu reportedly claimed that he had confessed under torture during police interrogation and that the torture had included beatings with heavy chains and sticks, electric shocks to the toes, fingers and genitals and forced injection of hot pepper, gasoline and ginger into the nose. Both the first instance and appeal courts reportedly refused to allow his lawyers to introduce these allegations as evidence in his defence.

Use of torture
Ye Guozhu was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in 2004 for his opposition to forced evictions in Beijing associated with construction for the Olympic games. It emerged during 2006 that Ye had been tortured while in detention. He was reportedly suspended from the ceiling by the arms and beaten repeatedly by police in Dongcheng district detention centre, Beijing, and also reportedly tortured in another prison in the second half of 2005.

A boycott of the Olympics seems unlikely, and as Kevin said in his article on this, boycotting Chinese products would seem futile. More, it would probably harm the economic development of the country. But there does seem to be a logic in boycotting products of the sponsors of the Games. You can also help by joining the Amnesty campaign.