Olympics Remind Us Chinese Are Tyrants

The Beijing Olympics are over. Thank goodness.

I watched very little of the Games. Not because I'm anti-sports: I happened to see the men's 5K last night, and I was riveted, watching a dozen-plus men engaged in perhaps the simplest, most elegant sport (captured most aptly by Montrose track coach Ken Greeno in four words: "Go hard, turn left").

For all the grace and power of world-class runners, I'd still rather go for a run myself than watch others doing it. And I'd rather not give any of my time to a PR campaign orchestrated by a totalitarian regime. No, not NBC—China. You know, the dictators who have been happy to take advantage of the Olympics to make themselves look good while crushing dissent.

This morning's case in point: The Chinese government's offer of three public spaces in Beijing for peaceful demonstrations during the Games was really just a ruse to lure protestors to apply for protest permits. Over 70 applications were submitted. The Chinese government approved none of them. Instead, the Chinese government used the applications to track, detain, harass, and even arrest and punish potential troublemakers.

Among the threats to Chinese security: two elderly, illiterate Beijing grandmothers, who applied to hobble down the park on their canes and complain about how the city government demolished their homes and never compensated them. The Chinese government's response: sentence the women to one year of "re-education." The government is actually giving them a break: the women can serve their sentence at home, but any more trouble from them, and it's off to a labor camp. Meanwhile, plainclothes cops are staking out their neighborhood, and their neighbors are under orders to watch the old ladies.

And those ladies didn't even mention Tibet. Ugh.

Read more on Chinese oppression:

• Peter Foster, "U.S. Disrupts Olympic Party with Human Rights Attack on China," UK Telegraph, 2008.08.24
• "China Dropped the Ball," Arizona Republic, 2008.08.24
• K.C. Jones, "Chinese Police Arrest Bloggers Covering Olympics Protest, Reports Say," InformationWeek, 2008.08.24
• Ron Judd, "IOC Leader Stands Aside for Oppressive Regime," Seattle Times, 2008.08.22
• Douglas Todd, "China's Stress on 'Harmony' Keeps Tight Lid on Religion," Vancouver Sun community blogs, 2008.08.23