It's probably best that we ignore the arrests and instead, shake hands with the government leaders and praise them for the show. Taking a firm position against blatant disregard for human rights isn't really proper etiquette and is best left at home, where you already have blatant disregard for human rights. We should all be thankful that we have a great leader like George Bush who stands for American values, or at they more communist China values or perhaps, Soviet Union values? Ahhh, it's so confusing.
The Olympic Games have become the occasion for a broad crackdown against dissidents, gadflies and malcontents this summer. Although human rights activists say they have no accurate estimate of how many people have been imprisoned, they believe the figure to be in the thousands.
The crackdown comes seven years after the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee declared that staging the Games in the Chinese capital would "not only promote our economy but also enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights."
Now, human rights have been set back rather than enhanced, activists say.
"The Olympics have reversed the clock," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based specialist for Human Rights in China.
Another foreign human rights advocacy group, Amnesty International, came to a similar conclusion in a report issued Monday titled "The Olympics Countdown -- Broken Promises."
"By continuing to persecute and punish those who speak out for human rights, the Chinese authorities have lost sight of the promises they made when they were granted the Games seven years ago," said Roseann Rife, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific deputy director. "The Chinese authorities are tarnishing the legacy of the Games."
