Pro-Tibet Protest Disrupts Olympic Ceremony
The New York Times reports about a protest that disrupted an Olympic Ceremony last Sunday (when Greek officials handed over the Olympic flame to organizers of the Beijing Summer Games), but it seems to me that this is what they should have expected. China has one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, and the communists have tried to completely destroy Tibetan culture. This is the opportunity for Tibetans to force the world to pay attention to its plight.
Shouting “Free Tibet” and flashing red banners blaring “Stop Genocie in Tibet,” the demonstrators charged into a police cordon, trying to block the torch runner carrying the Olympic flame from making the final 100-meter run into an Athens stadium.
Backed by riot squads, scores of police officers detained 10 of an estimated 15 demonstrators, taking them to Greece’s national police headquarters minutes after the ceremony began.
Athens mounted a major security operation for the event, deploying more than 1,000 police officers and changing the flame’s route at least three times to prevent activists from upstaging Sunday’s ceremony.
Preventing it? Greece should act as if it does everything possible against protesters, but it should condone protests silently. We all act as if the Olympic Games are something… moral, something special, something bigger than life; if that’s the case, the Olympics should be used to draw attention to what’s going on in Tibet.
