Event Notice: A Race for Human Rights, Sponsored by the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR)

In order to call attention to the human rights problems in China, the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) (http://www.igfm.de/, German website; http://www.ishr.org/index.html, English website) has organised a ten mile race for an untainted 2008 Beijing Olympic Event, which is to take place on August 28th 2004. We note that ISHR also spoke on behalf of Xiong Wei’s release from a Chinese forced labour camp.

The People's Republic of China initiated a hardcore campaign almost as soon, as Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic events on July 13th 2001, during which more people were executed in three months than in three years worldwide. Many of those sentenced to death were taken to a crowded sports stadium, where apparently some of the 2008 tournaments will take place, to be publicly humiliated before their execution. Also, as rumour has it, the world’s most spectacular beach ball tournament will take place on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the place where, in 1989, the tanks of the People’s Liberation Army crushed several hundred people.

China takes advantage of the '9/11' World Trade Centre September 11, 2001 terrorist attack as a pretext for “Fighting Terror” in their country. Victims of this campaign include Tibetans, Catholics with loyalty to Rome, Protestant resident churches, the spiritual practice Falun Gong, Muslim Uighurs and other ethnic minorities. Civil rights activists, the opposition, members of the workers' movement, independent trade unions, and democrats are threatened with lengthy prison sentences or confinement in institutions for mentally disturbed felons. The award of the Olympic events was seen by the Chinese leadership in Beijing, and clearly evidenced in their propaganda, that the international community recognised the existing social stability and progress on that front. China therefore believed itself to be justified in their hard line actions against dissidents. Therefore, the former Chinese Vice President Li Lanqing, after being awarded the Beijing Olympic events, announced, “We have achieved an important victory over Falun Gong. We were awarded the honour to host the 2008 Olympic Games (The Australian, July 23, 2001).

On November the 21st 2003, based on the “Voelkerstrafgestezbuchs” (German Civil Statute Book), which came in force on June 2002 in Germany, legal proceedings, against the former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other high level functionaries of the Chinese Government, were filed with the Chief Federal Prosecutor in Karlsruhe. The complaint includes genocide of Falun Gong practitioners, crimes against humanity, torture and murder. One of those charged among the functionaries is Liu Qi, Beijing’s former mayor and chairman of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Committee. In June 2003, Liu Qi was found guilty by a U.S. Court of being responsible for torture of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Such facts are not compatible with the spirit of the Olympics. The IOC and the international community must insist on China’s compliance regarding human rights.