GREECE: OLYMPICS - Human rights activists demonstrate against the Beijing Olympic Games and China's human rights record

Human rights activists from across the world, and other spectators, gathered in central Athens on Thursday (August 9) to launch a global torch relay and urge a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics with criticism of China's human rights record. The protesters allege that Beijing continues to commit human rights violations against dissidents, including the practitioners of the spiritual group Falun Gong, in the run up to next year's Games. Communist China has classified Falun Gong as a cult and banned it in 1999. Since then the group has campaigned from abroad against what it says is brutal persecution of its followers in China. "I don't think anyone in this world should be prosecuted because he thinks differently, he has the courage to think differently from the official dogma or official propaganda, or even if it's China or anywhere in the world," said activist Lydia Melinde from Romania. Organisers of the event in Athens central square, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG), said Beijing was involved in systematic "organ harvesting" from jailed Falun Gong practitioners and other dissidents. "What we are trying to do here, and in the relay that is about to start, is to put enough pressure on the government of China in the leadup to the Olympics that they will stop killing their own people and selling their livers and kidneys and so on to people around the world," said former Canadian Junior Foreign Minister David Kilgour. Kilgour, co-author of a report on Chinese "organ harvesting", said the International Olympic Committee was turning a blind eye to violations of its own charter. IOC President Jacques Rogge on Monday fended off criticism saying the Games were a force for good but were no panacea. "That's garbage. Jacques Rogge the president of the IOC should know very well what the olympic charter says, this charter was in this city in 1896 when the modern Olympics were started, talks about human dignity. How can you have a government that is killing its own citizens and selling their organs to anyone that has got a buck to buy them or a lot of bucks to buy them and talk about human dignity. Jacques Rogge should re-read the Olympic charter in my view," said Kilgour. The global human rights torch relay will stop over in 25 countries and more than 100 cities in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, organisers said. Among the speakers were former Olympic athletes, including the 2006 Olympics luge bronze medallist Martins Rubenis from Latvia. A group of women, dressed as ancient Greek priestesses, representing the virtues of liberty, peace and justice lit their torches before passing the light to five other women representing the five continents. This was in imitation of the traditional torch lighting relay that precedes the Summer Olympic Games. Beijing marked the one-year countdown to the Games on Wednesday with spectacular celebrations at the central Tiananmen Square.

ITN Source | August 11, 2007

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