Protests & Politics Dominate Olympic Coverage

Today’s Washington Post has a long write-up on the political events that are bringing the world’s critical focus onto China. At the top of their list are protests by Students for a Free Tibet and other Tibetans. The article documents a number of other issues and events taking place inside and outside of China this week, but this passage of Beijing’s handling of a Tibetan woman trying to enter China is just mind-boggling:

To prevent such protests inside their own borders, Chinese authorities recently threatened to take away one female activist’s two babies as she tried to enter the country. A Tibetan woman surnamed Kemo was returning to China on July 18 after nearly two years in the United States, where she had had two children. She was stopped by a passport control officer, escorted to an interrogation room and asked whether she had ever participated in political protests.

“Yes, but a long time ago,” Kemo said she replied, speaking on the condition that her first name not be used. Officers then showed her computer printouts of photos of her participating at various U.S. protests. “You are lying to us,” an officer told her.

Officers pried the children away from her, slapping her and one of her children when he clutched her purse strap to prevent her from being taken away, she said.

The officer then gave her a choice: accept deportation and buy plane tickets to take her children back to the United States or go to jail and lose her children. After she bought the tickets, police escorted her to the next flight to New York and returned her children on the jetway to the airplane.

Intense spying, beating women and children, and threatening to kidnap a woman’s kids — this is the side of the Chinese government that they hoped the world wouldn’t see. Well, here it is. Now the world was deal with it as the Olympics start…



2 Responsesto “Protests & Politics Dominate Olympic Coverage”

1. olympic coverage | hotwordstoday says:

   August 7, 2008 at 10:19 pm

   [...] Protests & Politics Dominate Olympic Coverage [...]
2. olympic coverage | HotBlogSearch.com says:

   August 7, 2008 at 11:55 pm

   [...] video network and encoding technologies are …Beijing Olympics 2008 – http://www.robladin.comProtests & Politics Dominate Olympic CoverageToday’s Washington Post has a long write-up on the political events that are bringing the [...]
3. Kevin Mitchell says:

   May 24, 2010 at 12:27 am

   i have never been a fan of Bad Politics and bad policies in the government. they always present bad news.**.
4. Matthew Anderson says:

   July 27, 2010 at 7:43 pm

   actually, i do not like politics that much because it is a dirty job.`.’