Norway: Global Human Rights Torch Relay Arrives in Oslo

On Saturday the 13th of October, Bislet Stadium, where the Olympic torch was lit during the Winter Olympics in 1952, was again the centre of a torch relay. This time, though, it is the arena for the Global Human Rights Torch Relay. The Torch Relay started in Athens in August this year, one year before the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, and is being passed on to thirty five countries around the globe, with a demand to China to fulfill its promise about respect for human rights. The Torch Relay has received wide support from people, politicians and previous Olympic medalists both in Norway and internationally.

In 2001, when the International Olympic Committee gave the 2008 Olympics to Beijing, a large part of it was because of the Chinese delegations promise to improve its human rights. But today, less than a year before the Olympics, organisations such as Amnesty International, Reporter without borders, Human Rights Watch, the UN and others are reporting a growing number of brutal violations in China.

Or as Reidar Smith, an eighty five year old man who took part in the resistance group Milorg D13 during the occupation of Norway during World War Two, said in a greeting to the relay: "The Chinese leaders today clearly show that their path in life goes in the dark and their human intolerableness is large and frightening."

Mr. Jianhui, a Chinese UN refugee in Norway and Falun Gong practitioner, confirmed this when he gave his testimony about the brutal mistreatment he had been exposed to for four years in a labour camp in China. The guards said to him: "If we beat you to death, we will not be held responsible for it."

Victims of the regime’s abuses

In addition to Falun Gong, the victims of the regime’s abuses are the Tibetans, who are exposed to arbitrary arrests and extensive use of torture, the Uighurs, who are arrested and tortured for separatist activity under the pretext of "anti-terror" after the 9/11 incident in 2001, as well as Christians in house churches or underground churches, who are reporting house ransack, arrests and torture in this time ahead of the Olympics in Beijing.

In addition, the UN and others have reported that organs are harvested from unwilling, living Falun Gong practitioners (1) and sold for profit, as a part of the eight year long and vicious persecution against the practice.

Support from politicians, athletes and others

"By being the host of the Olympic Games, China has also agreed to the Olympic Charter and those values that belong to the modern Olympic idea as how Pierre de Coubertin expressed it. Today, this has to mean that fundamental human rights have to be respected", said Olemic Thommessen, Member of Parliament and the Conservative Party's spokesperson for sport and politics.

He points out that according to the Olympic Charter, the Olympics shall, "build respect for universal fundamental ethical principles and contribute to a harmonious development and a peaceful society which upholds human dignity".

Modulf Aukan, former Member of Parliament from the Christian Democrats, Bjorn Jacobsen, Member of Parliament for Socialist Left Party, and Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, leader of The Young Conservatives, support the demand that China has to respect human rights and that the Olympics and violations of human rights cannot coexist.

Erik Bjorkum, who got silver in the Olympics in Seoul in 1988 in sailing, is one of the former Norwegian Olympic medalists who supports the Torch Relay. He says: "It is sad that China does not fully understand what the Olympic ideals are building on. I cheer on the Torch Relay and hope it wins gold!"

Note:
1. About the organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners you may also see the independent Canadian report, Bloody Harvest, at www.organharvestinvestigation.net, which conclude that forced labour camps are used as living organ banks.

Originally published in Norwegian at http://no.clearharmony.net/articles/200710/1846.html