Protests halt Paris torch relay early

[ray245]

PARIS - Police say the last section of the Olympic torch relay through Paris will not be run because of chaotic protests.

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Security officials snuffed out the torch and rushed it onto a bus at least five times because of the raucous protests against China's human rights record.

A police spokeswoman says a vehicle now will carry the torch for the entire last part of the route, to a sports stadium in the south of Paris. The French Olympic Committee says it hopes that runners still might be able to carry the torch at the very end.

A Paris police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, says at least 28 people have been taken into custody at the protests.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PARIS (AP) — Security officials snuffed out the Olympic torch and carried it through Paris in the safety of a bus at least five times Monday as chaotic protests against China's human rights record turned the relay into a chaotic series of stops and starts.

Despite massive security, at least two activists got within almost an arm's length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. A protester threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it and was taken away. Officers tackled numerous protesters and carried some away.

At the start of the relay, on the Eiffel Tower's first floor, Green Party activist Sylvain Garel lunged for the first torchbearer, former hurdler Stephane Diagana, shouting "Freedom for the Chinese!" Security officials pulled Garel back.

"It is inadmissible that the games are taking place in the world's biggest prison," Garel said later.

The procession continued but a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags soon interrupted it by confronting the torchbearer on a road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get within reach of the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and put on board a bus to continue part way along the route.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a traffic tunnel by a woman athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted "Tibet." Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus.

The third time, security officials apparently interrupted the procession because they spotted demonstrators ahead. After the torch was put on a bus, protesters threw plastic bottles, cups and pieces of bread at the vehicle and at a male wheelchair-bound athlete.

The torch disappeared back inside the bus a fourth time shortly after a protester approached it with a fire extinguisher near the Louvre art museum. Police grabbed the demonstrator before he could start to spray.

The flame was whisked into a bus again outside the National Assembly, where protesters gathered. A session of parliament was interrupted and a banner on the building read: "Respect for Human Rights in China." City Hall draped its building with a banner reading, "Paris defends human rights around the world."

Other demonstrators scaled the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame cathedral and hung banners depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

About 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and with inline roller skates.

Police said they made at least 10 arrests but did not expect to have a full count before evening.

Pro-Tibet advocate Christophe Cunniet said he and around 20 other Tibet advocates were detained after they waved Tibetan flags, threw flyers and tried to block the route. Cunniet said police kicked him, cutting his forehead. "I'm still dazed," he said.

Mireille Ferri, a Green Party official, said she was held by police for two hours because she approached the Eiffel Tower area with a fire extinguisher.

In various locations throughout the city, activists angry about China's human rights record and crackdown on protesters in Tibetan areas carried Tibetan flags and waved signs reading "the flame of shame." Riot police squirted tear gas to break up a sit-in protest by about 300 demonstrators who blocked the torch route.

"The flame shouldn't have come to Paris," said protester Carmen de Santiago, who had "free" painted on one cheek and "Tibet" on the other.

Torchbearer Diagana said he was disappointed to see the protests, though he understood why activists were there.

"Nothing is happening as planned. It's unfortunate," he told France 2 television.

At least one athlete was supportive of demonstrators. Former Olympic champion Marie-Jose Perec told French television: "I think it is very, very good that people have mobilized like that."

Pro-Chinese activists carrying national flags held counter-demonstrations.

"The Olympic Games are about sports. It's not fair to turn them into politics," said Gao Yi, a Chinese second-year doctoral student in Paris in computer sciences.

France's former sports minister, Jean-Francois Lamour, stressed that, though the torch was put out aboard the bus, the Olympic flame itself still burned in the lantern where it is kept overnight and on airplane flights.

"The torch has been extinguished but the flame is still there," he told France Info radio.

Police had hoped to prevent the chaos that marred the relay in London a day earlier. There, police had repeatedly scuffled with activists angry about China's human rights record leading up to the Beijing Olympics Aug. 8-24. One protester tried to grab the torch; another tried to put out the flame with what appeared to be a fire extinguisher. Thirty-seven people were arrested.

In Paris, police had drawn up an elaborate plan to try to keep the torch in a safe "bubble." Torchbearers were encircled by several hundred officers. Boats patrolled the Seine River, which slices through the French capital, and a helicopter flew overhead.

About 80 athletes had been scheduled to carry the torch over the 17.4-mile route that started at the Eiffel Tower, headed down the Champs-Elysees toward City Hall, then crossed the Seine before ending at the Charlety track and field stadium.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has left open the possibility of boycotting the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing depending on how the situation evolves in Tibet. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday that was still the case.

Activists have been protesting along the torch route since the flame embarked on its 85,000-mile journey from Ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing.

The round-the-world trip is the longest in Olympic history, and is meant to highlight China's economic and political power. Activists have seized on it as a platform for their causes, angering Beijing.

Beijing organizers criticized London's protesters, saying their actions were a "disgusting" form of sabotage by Tibetan separatists.

"The act of defiance from this small group of people is not popular," said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. "It will definitely be criticized by people who love peace and adore the Olympic spirit. Their attempt is doomed to failure."

The torch relay also is expected to face demonstrations in San Francisco, New Delhi and possibly elsewhere on its 21-stop, six-continent tour before arriving in mainland China May 4.

_____

Associated Press writers Nicolas Garriga, Angela Doland and John Leicester contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080407/ap_ ... mpic_torch


Sigh. Like trying to take away the olympics from china is going to help human rights movemet at all.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Riots in Paris? The sun must have risen today.

[Dartzap]

The police here did quite an amusing thing: They did the opposite to what was on the schedule in some places, the protesters got slightly left behind in some areas.

[Edi]

ray, you are still as much of a moron as ever. The Olympics are not going to be removed from China. But there sure as shit will be protests about it, which will tell the Chinese government just how popular they are with the rest of the world. They can spew all the rhetoric about Tibetan activists they want, but the bottom line is that they know it's not just Tibetans and that they are really disliked. They just can't admit that publicly without losing face. So this charade will go on.

[18-Till-I-Die]

The thing is though, i really dont think the Chinese care.

Not being the kind of person with a What Would Hitler Do poster on his wall i cant really speak directly for what the Chinese government's leaders are thinking, per se...

But i can guess they really dont care. There's like over a billion of them, and they have one of the fastest rising economies and a huge military to back them up. Even IF they realize the rest of the world hates their guts, much like the leaders in Zembabwe (sp?) and North Korea, they probably simply don't give a fuck.

Indeed, in that respect they're not unlike the United States: they're in a position, militarily and economically, where only a handful of people can challenge them and so they simply dont care who protests or how much as it has no effect on them, they're just to big, it's like a few dozen houseflies trying to attack an elephant.

Which is not to say they're right or people shouldn't at least TRY, but in the end unless some massive paradigm shift happens the Chinese government is really untouched by all of this.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Riots in Paris? The sun must have risen today.

There was plenty of brouhaha in London, too. I almost could understand why Matt Stone and Trey Parker are so disdainful of self-important liberal arts protest-happy twentynothings, considering again how little they know about Tibet's real history and the wolves licking their chops inside Tibetan monasteries at the (nigh impossible) notion of a Chinese withdrawl.

[ray245]

Because in my opinion, trying to stuff facts into the chinese face may convince them to ignore the west opinion in regards to human rights even more.

It can sort of start the mentality the human rights is a western idea hence china don't need to follow them.

The more you tried to force them to open up, the more they will not do so. If the face concept will ensure that japan will not offically apologised for the war crimes they committed in world war 2, I doubt that more demostration and trying to extinguish the olympic flame for example, will change the fact.

And I doubt applying economic pressure due to the issue in tibet can hardly benefit Tibet and the human rights problem in tibet. The rise of a more liberal minded middle class should benefit the human rights issue more than simply causing the chinese to lose face.

[Pablo Sanchez]

The thing is though, i really dont think the Chinese care.

All indications are that the PRC government cares intensely about presenting a good image for the Beijing Games. They are an advertisement to the rest of the world that China has to be taken seriously in cultural matters, and they are a nationalistic rallying point for the population of China, a signal that the country has arrived on the world stage.

This kind of action on the part of European citizens also has to be considered as indicative of an anti-Chinese trend in Western public opinion. China's economy is heavily dependent on the goodwill of the Western nations where they export their wares. If people started to boycott Chinese goods, the Chinese economy would be in serious trouble, and the good economic situation of China today is the core of the regime's claims to legitimacy.

As for Ray's claims that just leaving China alone is a better solution than actually applying pressure to them--that's stupid. The emerging Chinese middle class has minimal political ambition because, after all, they owe all their gains to the state and the consequences of political agitation are too high. Most political opposition still comes from the lower classes, who have gained less and have less to lose, and from those like the Tibetans who are oppressed by the PRC government. Moreover, China's middle class is growing too slowly for a hands-off approach to be at all effective in any sort of reasonable timescale.

At this point, it isn't really possible for China to draw inward and ignore real international opprobrium. I would argue that the reason they're standing defiant on most of the human rights issues of today is none of the political forces in the west really takes human rights seriously (excepting maybe Germany). It's a good thing to pretend to care about, but in reality they're a dead issue from the get-go.

[Plekhanov]

The thing is though, i really dont think the Chinese care.

Not being the kind of person with a What Would Hitler Do poster on his wall i cant really speak directly for what the Chinese government's leaders are thinking, per se...

But i can guess they really dont care. There's like over a billion of them, and they have one of the fastest rising economies and a huge military to back them up. Even IF they realize the rest of the world hates their guts, much like the leaders in Zembabwe (sp?) and North Korea, they probably simply don't give a fuck.

Indeed, in that respect they're not unlike the United States: they're in a position, militarily and economically, where only a handful of people can challenge them and so they simply dont care who protests or how much as it has no effect on them, they're just to big, it's like a few dozen houseflies trying to attack an elephant.

Which is not to say they're right or people shouldn't at least TRY, but in the end unless some massive paradigm shift happens the Chinese government is really untouched by all of this.

Why would they have gone to all the effort of getting the Olympics and invested so much in hosting it in the 1st place if they don't care about their image and popularity in the world?

[Siege]

I think the Chinese do care about how the rest of the world see them. I think they care a great deal, but I also think they've got an odd way of showing it. Personally I'm getting really tired of this insufferable attitude the Chinese are giving the world. Mayor of Paris says his city "supports human rights worldwide"? It's an insult of the Chinese People! Western nation X critiques the way China is handling Tibet? They're insulting China!

Anything is "insulting China!" with these people. And they act as if "insulting China!" is a transgression on the level of the Seven Mortal Sins. Christ, considering there's a billion of them you'd think they'd be a bit more secure and a little less insanely zealotic about their nation. Particularly not considering their less than perfect human rights record. If this was Switzerland that'd be critiqued I could understand if the Swiss got a bit miffed about it, but this is China, and at this point I'd just like the Chinese to shut the hell up about these perceived slights against their gigantic national ego. And preferably do something with that criticism, rather than killing the messenger over and over and over.

[Xisiqomelir]

Not bad, Paris. The Yay will not be outdone though! I look forward to seeing what SF can pull out on Wednesday.

[Plekhanov]

Not bad, Paris. The Yay will not be outdone though! I look forward to seeing what SF can pull out on Wednesday.

Why on earth did they decide to send the torch to SF? There can't be many cities in the US with a greater concentration of human rights types.

[ray245]

The thing is though, i really dont think the Chinese care.

All indications are that the PRC government cares intensely about presenting a good image for the Beijing Games. They are an advertisement to the rest of the world that China has to be taken seriously in cultural matters, and they are a nationalistic rallying point for the population of China, a signal that the country has arrived on the world stage.

This kind of action on the part of European citizens also has to be considered as indicative of an anti-Chinese trend in Western public opinion. China's economy is heavily dependent on the goodwill of the Western nations where they export their wares. If people started to boycott Chinese goods, the Chinese economy would be in serious trouble, and the good economic situation of China today is the core of the regime's claims to legitimacy.

As for Ray's claims that just leaving China alone is a better solution than actually applying pressure to them--that's stupid. The emerging Chinese middle class has minimal political ambition because, after all, they owe all their gains to the state and the consequences of political agitation are too high. Most political opposition still comes from the lower classes, who have gained less and have less to lose, and from those like the Tibetans who are oppressed by the PRC government. Moreover, China's middle class is growing too slowly for a hands-off approach to be at all effective in any sort of reasonable timescale.

At this point, it isn't really possible for China to draw inward and ignore real international opprobrium. I would argue that the reason they're standing defiant on most of the human rights issues of today is none of the political forces in the west really takes human rights seriously (excepting maybe Germany). It's a good thing to pretend to care about, but in reality they're a dead issue from the get-go.

As you have pointed out, china's economic success is mainly due to them opening up to europe and the US.

There is the possibility that once china's economic starts to go towards a recession or etc, blames may fall towards the west as compared to looking at their own government.

Looking for a scapegoat and push their blames towards it as compared to looking at themselves.

It's not like we can realistically expect china to admit all their human rights offense in the short term anyway.

And given how poorly was treated by the west for the past century or so, I doubt they will really accept anything the west throw at them.

And harping about the human rights issue is just another polticial tool to secure nations' own interest as compared to really in the interest of really helping out humanity.



Come to think of it, what will happen to china if the central government admitt to human rights wrong doing anyway?

In the end, the most that will come out of this is the west screaming 'we are right!' and doing nothing else about it.

Sigh, at this rate, we might as well host the olympic in greece every time.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Why on earth did they decide to send the torch to SF? There can't be many cities in the US with a greater concentration of human rights types.

Clearly the Committee either hates the Chinese, or the Chinese are masochist.

[Plekhanov]

Why on earth did they decide to send the torch to SF? There can't be many cities in the US with a greater concentration of human rights types.

Clearly the Committee either hates the Chinese, or the Chinese are masochist.

Hopefully the relay will be routed over some of the steepest hills, if the protests & policing are half as energetic as those in London it'll be something to see those ongoing scrummages on those crazy inclines they have there.

[RedImperator]

Riots in Paris? The sun must have risen today.

There was plenty of brouhaha in London, too. I almost could understand why Matt Stone and Trey Parker are so disdainful of self-important liberal arts protest-happy twentynothings, considering again how little they know about Tibet's real history and the wolves licking their chops inside Tibetan monasteries at the (nigh impossible) notion of a Chinese withdrawl.

The Chinese may be getting the hairbrush to their backsides for the wrong offense, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're a nasty totalitarian dictatorship that imprisons its domestic critics, mollycoddles the genocidal Sudanese government, runs over protesters with tanks, and killed tens of millions of its own people in the not-too-distant past. Having their precious Olympics turned into an international farce is the least that government deserves.

[Metatwaddle]

Does anyone know of any sources with reliable information on Tibet pre-Chinese invasion? I'm really having trouble finding peer-reviewed sources.

[Plekhanov]

Does anyone know of any sources with reliable information on Tibet pre-Chinese invasion? I'm really having trouble finding peer-reviewed sources.

Despite a fair bit of looking I haven't really been able to find anything online so I'm afraid you may have to go to a library.

I do think it's fair to say that pre-invasion Tibet was a real mess, a tyrannical theocracy which viciously repressed dissent, kept much of the population as bonded serfs/slaves and a huge portion as unproductive nuns & monks and effectively kept Tibet in a medieval level of development well into the 20th century.

From what I've been able to learn (much of it 2nd hand from a friend who did her dissertation on the subject so no linkable sources sorry) the Chinese occupation has raised the overall standard of living in Tibet and there's arguably more social freedom there now (but that's only because there was so little previously). But the Chinese occupation is vicious and of course comes down very hard on manifestations of Tibetan Buddhism it doesn't like.

The current regime is arguably better than the one it displaced but that's only because the previous one was so appalling not because there's really anything good about the current one.

Personally I tend to agree with those protesting over the last few days against China's human rights record both in China & occupied Tibet I just wish they weren't so clueless when it comes to what a jerk the Dali Lama is and how bad the Lama's regime was.

[Adrian Laguna]

The Chinese may be getting the hairbrush to their backsides for the wrong offense, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're a nasty totalitarian dictatorship that imprisons its domestic critics, mollycoddles the genocidal Sudanese government, runs over protesters with tanks, and killed tens of millions of its own people in the not-too-distant past. Having their precious Olympics turned into an international farce is the least that government deserves.

Wasn't that an accident? A little incompetence here, a bit of too much fanaticism there, and suddenly people are starving and beating each other to death in the streets.

Also, the Chinese have been a nasty totalitarian dictatorship since Shi Huangdi 2200 years ago. There's a certain level of cultural inertia at work here that makes me think complaining about what the Chinese do inside their borders is not going to accomplish anything save waste energy, might as well just leave them to their own devices. Their people, their business, their problem.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Wasn't that an accident? A little incompetence here, a bit of too much fanaticism there, and suddenly people are starving and beating each other to death in the streets.

Then they're about to have another little "accident" if they don't sort out the food and fuel crises hitting the nation right now. I'm sure Beijing and accompanying cities will look positively lovely when the world's eyes are upon them. The rest of the country though...

Also, the Chinese have been a nasty totalitarian dictatorship since Shi Huangdi 2200 years ago. There's a certain level of cultural inertia at work here that makes me think complaining about what the Chinese do inside their borders is not going to accomplish anything save waste energy, might as well just leave them to their own devices. Their people, their business, their problem.

Then they have an arsehole gene or meme that's remarkably persistent. Doesn't excuse shit, I'm afraid. For all the bad my country has done in the past, we've managed to tame it down to general hypocrisy and incompetence rather than megalomania malevolence.

[RedImperator]

[Also, the Chinese have been a nasty totalitarian dictatorship since Shi Huangdi 2200 years ago. There's a certain level of cultural inertia at work

Even if you accept this (and I don't--everyone was a nasty totalitarian dictatorship up until a few hundred years ago), that doesn't give the Chinese special immunity from criticism. They were the ones who invited international scrutiny when they courted the Olympics; now they can deal with the consequences.

[White Haven]

Regarding the 'RAR Tibet sucked ass' meme...is that really relevant? Iraq sucked ass for quite a lot of people before the US invaded it, but does the US get a free pass for invading it because of it? Nope, and that's perfectly correct. China doesn't get a free pass because the nation it invaded was a theocracy instead of a secular government

[Plekhanov]

Regarding the 'RAR Tibet sucked ass' meme...is that really relevant? Iraq sucked ass for quite a lot of people before the US invaded it, but does the US get a free pass for invading it because of it? Nope, and that's perfectly correct. China doesn't get a free pass because the nation it invaded was a theocracy instead of a secular government

I think it's possibly an overreaction to the generally slavish adoration and almost complete lack of scrutiny the Dalai Lama receives from most of media, when some people find out the truth they tend to swing back rather too far in the opposite direction.

[Warsie]

Regarding the 'RAR Tibet sucked ass' meme...is that really relevant? Iraq sucked ass for quite a lot of people before the US invaded it, but does the US get a free pass for invading it because of it? Nope, and that's perfectly correct. China doesn't get a free pass because the nation it invaded was a theocracy instead of a secular government

Before Gulf War I, Iraq was a decent nation with a good economy, even after the Iran-Iraq War. Actually, before Gulf War 2, Iraq was better off than it is now

Plekhanov, here's a link:

someone else on this site posted this. I bookmarked it
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

[FSTargetDrone]

I think it's possibly an overreaction to the generally slavish adoration and almost complete lack of scrutiny the Dalai Lama receives from most of media, when some people find out the truth they tend to swing back rather too far in the opposite direction.

Much like the "slavish adoration" that "Mother Teresa" received during her life and afterwards. No one wants to believe that such an apparently simple and pious woman who devoted her life to "helping" the poor did anything at all worthy of scorn and derision. The seemingly innocuous and inoffensive religious leaders who don't seem excessively nutty get a free pass.