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Activists hold protests ahead of Games

On the eve of the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony, about 100 people joined a candlelight vigil in Taipei organized by several human rights groups, urging China to fulfill its Olympic promises and stop human rights abuses.

“China said that it wants to win Olympic medals in basketball, in gymnastics — but I want to ask China: Are you capable of winning a gold medal in human rights?” asked Freddy Lim (林昶佐), lead vocalist of the Taiwanese heavy metal rock band Chthonic and a long-time supporter of human rights and democracy movements in Taiwan and China.

“I’m not asking too much of you [China], because improving human rights is a promise that you made when you applied to host the Olympics,” Lim said.

He stood in front of a banner that read: “May the candlelight of human rights shine over Beijing.”

In front of him, the English word “freedom” was spelled out in candles.

Lim was joined by Tibet activists, free Burma campaigners, representatives of human rights organizations, Chinese democracy activist Wang Min (汪岷) and Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).

“[The Chinese government] represses Falun Gong, Tibetans and Uighurs in Xinjiang — of course China is not qualified to host the Olympics,” Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan executive director Chien Hsi-chieh told the crowd.

“China claims that it’s sticking to ‘Chinese-style’ human rights and democracy, but human rights and democracy are universal: There’s no such thing as ‘Chinese-style’ democracy and human rights,” Chien said.

“With our freedom, we should help the Chinese people to promote theirs,” he added.

Representing Burmese in Taiwan, Myanmar-born ethnic Chinese Yang Yung-chu (楊永助) condemned China for supporting Myanmar’s military junta.

“The military junta violently cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators last year. It also delayed international aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis earlier this year,” Yang said.

“While the international community strongly condemned the junta, they didn’t care, because the Chinese government supported them because of China’s own interests in Southeast Asia,” Yang said.

Yang also accused China of using its veto power as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to block the UN from sanctioning the military dictatorship.

“We’d like to call on China to stop blocking UN sanction, and to withdraw its support for the junta,” he said.

Tashi Tsering, chairman of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress-Taiwan, accusedd China of conducting cultural genocide with the goal of completely destroying traditional Tibetan culture by purposely transferring large numbers of non-Tibetans into Tibet.

“I’m a foreigner in Taiwan, but if one day I go to Tibet, I’ll be a stranger in my own country as well,” Tashi said.

The groups also suggested the public boycott the Olympics by refusing to watch them.

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