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| June 07, 2008 | Saturday | Jamadi-us-Sani 02, 1429 |
Anti-China protests force IOC to decide torch relay future
ATHENS (Greece), June 6: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will discuss whether global torch relays are still a good idea after the spate of anti-China protests that dogged the Beijing Games relay, the IOC said on Friday.
“We are not blind, neither naive,” IOC President Jacques Rogge told a news conference at the end of a three-day IOC executive board meeting in Athens.
“The torch has been utilised by protesters, and unfortunately these protests have been violent... we will take that into account in our assessment of the Olympic Games in Beijing as a whole,” Rogge said.
“I’m not saying we’ll continue this, I’m saying that we’ll study this objectively, but I want to insist on the great symbol of the torch.”The Beijing torch relay has suffered a series of mishaps since it started its journey at the beginning of April.
The London, Paris and San Francisco legs of the relay were interrupted by pro-Tibet protesters objecting to China’s crackdown on violence in Lhasa, the capital of the Himalayan region, that erupted on March 14.
Tibetan groups against Chinese rule say that holding the torch relay through the province will be a public relations stunt benefiting China at a time when its authorities are conducting a “brutal crackdown”.
A group of seven Tibetan activists on Friday demonstrated outside the hotel where the IOC talks were taking place, demanding that the torch relay be kept out of the province and foreign media be allowed in to witness China’s alleged human rights abuses.
Greek police moved them away from the hotel entrance and took away their flags and banners.
A similar protest was held here on Thursday.
Asked to comment, Rogge said: “The Chinese have expressed the wish to pass the torch in all their provinces and regions.
“Tibet is a region of China, so therefore we think it is normal that they pass from Tibet.
“The Dalai Lama himself called to have no protests during the torch relay in Tibet. I hope that everything will be peaceful,” added the IOC president.—AFP
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