EU MP Expresses Doubts about the Olympic Games in Beijing

Following a story in Denmark’s biggest daily newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, entitled “Denmark’s two parties demand that the Prince stay away from the Beijing Olympic Games”, Denmark’s biggest sport newspaper Ekstrabladet also carried an article, written by a Danish MEP, Gitte Seeberg, entitled “The Olympic Games in China”. The article was published on July 7th.

Danish MEP Gitte Seeberg has doubts about the Olympic Games in Beijing	Denmark’s biggest sport newspaper Ekstrabladet carries an article entitled “Olympic Games in China”

The article pointed out that the Olympic Games will be held in a year and Beijing has been chosen to host the event. However, it doesn’t mean that the Games can go ahead smoothly, as there are still many human rights problems in China.

In 2006, over one thousand people were sentenced to death in China. The Chinese Communist regime still employs its state machinery to crack down on minority groups, such as the persecution against Falun Gong, trading in human organs; the incarceration of pro-democracy activists participating in the June 4th Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989; the control over the mass media. In addition, in China BBC News website cannot be found by search engines; if you enter the keywords such as “human rights” or “Tiananmen” into Google or Yahoo’s search engines, you cannot get any results.

Given these, how can we allow the Olympic torch be ignited there? As there are still so many serious human rights problems with the Chinese Communist regime, how can the international society praise it and not condemn it?

Some may think that we can take advantage of this opportunity to urge all the leading media that have focused on China due to hosting this Olympic Games to pay attention to China’s human rights so as to improve China’s human rights situation.

Perhaps it may be feasible and I sincerely hope that things can be going in this direction. However, judging from the facts in various aspects, I cannot help doubting that the media may forget their mission should they be overwhelmed by the illusion that the Chinese regime hosts such a splendid Olympic Games with short preparation time.

Then after the Olympic Games is over, if China still return to its original situation estranging itself from the outside world, what can the Western society do about it?

As a member of the International Olympic Committee, would Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik really want to go to Beijing to ignite the Olympic torch on behalf of Denmark? It seems that this topic will be further discussed continuously, and I believe there will be more and more this kind of discussion.