Activists warn China's Olympic PR woes set to deepen
BEIJING (AFP) — China's public relations woes over the Olympics are just beginning, activists have warned, after a torrid stretch of headlines highlighted by Steven Spielberg ending his links to the Games.
The international leg of the torch relay during April is set to be a target for protests over the many complaints about the Chinese government, while Beijing itself will likely be a magnet for critics during the August Games.
Jill Savitt, director of Olympic Dream for Darfur, an organisation set up to pressure China into helping end the bloodshed in the western Sudanese region, told AFP protests were already being planned for the torch relay.
"We will be targeting the various stages of the torch relay for demonstrations and we plan to be in Beijing during the Games for a demonstration," US-based Savitt said.
China, which is one the closest allies of the Sudanese government and its main arms supplier, has come under intense and sustained international criticism for not doing more to stop the years of civil conflict in Darfur.
Beijing insists it is playing a positive role in Sudan, and that activists like Savitt are simply politicising the Olympics and seeking to ruin the event.
But American speed skater Joey Cheek, a gold medallist at the Turin Winter Games two years ago and a self-described "huge" fan of the Olympics, disagreed that Darfur and sport should be mutually exclusive.
Cheek is a founding member of Team Darfur, a group of around 250 past Olympians athletes and future Olympic hopefuls from 42 countries who plan to use the Beijing Games to speak out on Darfur.
He said that, when host nations stage the Olympic for political reasons, people such as himself should not be accused of politicising the Games.
"Countries stage the Games not just because they like sport but because they want to showcase their country, people, culture and political systems. It makes no sense to say it is not political," Cheek told AFP.
Indeed, China's ruling Communist Party has made no secret of the fact it sees sees the Games as a chance to trumpet the nation's rise as a peaceful world power.
Meanwhile, the athletes from Team Darfur train in red, green and black sweatbands, and Chinese officials will undoubtedly be looking nervously for this sign of protest when Olympians train and compete in Beijing.
Other individuals and groups are hoping to shine the spotlight on issues such as China's controversial rule of Tibet, its record on human rights and religious freedoms, and its suppression of the Falungong spiritual movement.
Pro-Tibet independence groups and press freedom groups have already staged protests in China and are believed to be planning more.
"The Beijing Games are now, rightly, destined to become known as the Games of Shame," Free Tibet Campaign spokesman Matt Whitticase said after US film-maker Spielberg last week withdrew his services as an advisor for the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies.
US actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, who branded the Beijing Olympics the "Genocide Games" last year in a reference to Darfur, said activists could take heart from Spielberg's decision to quit.
"This is the time to increase pressure on Beijing, host of the Olympics, and tragically, the underwriter of the Darfur genocide," she said.
Among the other recent bad headlines for the Chinese, an aide to Britain's Prince Charles last month said the heir to the British throne would not attend the Olympic opening ceremony, apparently because of opposition to China's handling of Tibet.
And the British Olympic Association unwittingly caused a PR storm for China when it sought to have its athletes agree to a gag order preventing them from speaking out against Chinese policies.
The association backed down last week after an uproar in the British press, but not before the story served to again cast world attention on the alleged human rights abuses and other controversial policies of the Chinese government.
The Chinese government has admitted the pressure from protest groups are souring Olympic preparations.
China was "facing accusations from all over the world" that could cause "problems for the organisation and planning" of the Olympics, the People's Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said recently.