Hold Fast

The Olympics are meant to be a symbol of peace, or so we’re frequently told by Jacques Rogge of the International Olympic Committee. The Games are supposed to be a moment where the world comes together, focused on sport and not politics. I think it’s a pleasant fiction that the Olympics are not political, but […]

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100 monks were arrested for protesting the detention of other monks.
As many as 100 Tibetans were arrested in northwest China on Thursday after they demonstrated against the earlier detention of monks from a nearby monastery, witnesses and a Tibetan human rights group said Friday.
Local residents reached by telephone on Friday said that the police beat […]

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The Telegraph (Calcutta, India): Torch Tyrants Run Delhi.

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Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, has a great quote in a New York Times piece today about the pressure Tibetan support groups are placing on Coca-Cola regarding their sponsorship of the Olympic Torch Relay.
“We’re not asking Coke to solve Tibet’s problems,” Lhadon Tethong, the director of an organizing group called […]

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Well, I suppose you have to smell China’s “Harmonious” torch, because you couldn’t see the Olympic Torch Relay if you were in Delhi.
The Olympic torch made a strange and lonely procession through central Delhi on Thursday, with the event so overshadowed by fears of the anti-Chinese protests that marred its appearances in other cities that […]

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Following in the footsteps of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s hard stance against the Olympic torch relay going through Tibet - a welcome move that was akin to closing the barn door after the horses had escaped - London Mayor Ken Livingstone now says that he made a mistake by allowing Chinese armed security forces […]

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The Chinese government’s paranoia is really reaching comic levels.
Just two days before the Olympic torch relay here, a paranoid Chinese delegation told the Indian authorities that it fears guerrilla-style assaults by militant Tibetans and sought foolproof security for the event.
A high-level Chinese team led by former ambassador Sun Yuxi, who has been specially sent to […]

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Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake and Erick Erickson of RedState have a very interesting discussion of what’s going on in Tibet and China on Bloggingheads TV. Erickson argues that Bush should boycott the Olympics, while Jane pushes for action ahead of that, including efforts to ensure that China does not violently crack down in Tibet in […]

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Glenn Hurowitz, author of Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party, has a forceful op-ed in Politico today on Tibet, China, and the imperative for the US to “bring China to its knees” a la Congressman Charlie Wilson’s work to stop the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hurowitz challenges Tibetans to take a stronger stance than […]

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Hollywood star Jackie Chan:
Chan insists anyone trying to protest on his watch can expect short shrift, warning: ‘Demonstrators better not get anywhere near me.’
And the 54-year-old, speaking at the launch of latest movie Forbidden Kingdom, claimed many of the protestors are simply publicity seekers.
‘They are doing it for no reason. They just want to show […]

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