when challenged with china's apalling human rights record over receant years, the olympic comitee said that the games would somehow act as a catalyst to speed up progress in china and help put an end to the human rights abuses. may sound like these guys have their hearts in the right places, but really, come on. what do they base this assumption on? have we learnt nothing? 1936, the olympic games were held in berlin and opened by a mr.A Hitler. over the next 10 years around 7 million german citizens were murdered by their government. the games simply acted as a green light for mr hitler, a sign that he and his government had been accepted into the elitist old boys club of the political leaders of western europe. the same WILL happen in china.
i suggest that if between now and the time of the olympics, any publicly visible abuses of human rights do occur in china we strongly pettition the government not to send british athletes to china. this is a sign of defiance which i think can be achieved relatively easily and with huge public support.

Don't forget the hundreds of students killed in Mexico around the time of the 1968 Olympic Games. The authorities didn't want those resisting the PRI dictatorship spoiling their PR exercises, so they murdered them in the main plaza.

It will be the same in China if the Falun Gong stage one of their strictly peaceful protests. Don't think that Jiang Zhemin is any different from Deng Xioapeng, the butcher of Tianammen Square - after all, Chinese authorities have executed more people in the last three months than the rest of the world in the last three years (including Dubya's Texas). There is no difference between today's China and Nazi Germany - it's run by a corrupt, nationalist, imperial country that is staging a holocaust in Tibet and East Turkistan.

Athletes, eager for wealth and prestige, will trot along, trying to ignore the fact that by legitimising the games, they effectively have the blood of Chinese citizens on their hands. I say, target the UK Olympic committee and demand to know how UK representatives, who include 'Princess' Anne (a member of the family of munsters who rob from the poor). We should confront athletes and demand they boycott the Olympics.

Is anyone setting up an anti-Olympic committee? Should we go to the heart of the beast - Beijing - and give the fascist government a taste of European resistence?

i just read that untill some members of the international olympic comitee complained, the chinese were actually planning to hold the beach volley ball contest in tianeman square!!! this was the event which finally signalled the final death of a competitive sporting event and the birth of a trivialised media run advertising event last year in sydney. now its almost threatened to put to death all sense of compassion and respect! we must put an end to beach volley ball!! but seriously, if we can let the general public really know what happens in china then i think are athletes withdrawing is a goal which can be easily achieved.