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The China Support Network is seeking help from you, as a supporter of human rights. Concerned activists are now asked to apply pressure with a letter (below), sending outrage to the International Olympic Committee. The reason? China is now using the Olympics as a reason to crack down harder with human rights abuses! This is after the 2008 Olympics were awarded to China last year.

China is undergoing a seven-year "Olympic crackdown," according to official Chinese orders that were uncovered and leaked by activists. (More information follows below.)

The China Support Network's Executive Director, John Kusumi, said, "Is this the way to greet the Olympics? How many are dead in the Olympics' name? For the image and brand name of the Olympics, this is a global disgrace!"

Your help can make a difference. Please copy-and-paste the letter below to your own stationary or blank document. Fix it as needed to make it your letter, then send it to:

Jacques Rogge, President
International Olympic Committee
Château de Vidy
1007 Lausanne
Switzerland

June 10, 2002

President Jacques Rogge
The International Olympic Committee
Chateau de Vidy
1007 Lausanne
Switzerland

Dear President Rogge,

I am writing to express my outrage at recently uncovered secret orders of the Chinese government, using the Olympics as a pretext and excuse for a human rights crackdown, and to express my support for the campaign to move the Olympics to a more suitable location.

The Communists crossed a line in using the Olympics to justify a crackdown. In the first place, they should not be violating people and abusing their basic rights, which are internationally recognized to be universal. In the second place, they should not be using the Olympics for such purposes. In the third place, they should not be creating linkage between their unsavory practices and the Olympic name. To avoid a bad name or foul stench for the Olympics, China must forfeit its holding of the 2008 Olympics, and the games must be moved to a more suitable location.

I stand with Falun Gong, the Chinese freedom and democracy movement, and the China Support Network as they call for this necessary action, in the face of this flagrant and blatant provocation by the Chinese authorities.

I trust that your office will support this call to keep the Olympics "on the same page" with standards of civilized human society. Failing that, in the alternative, I will join in the boycott of Olympic advertisers in connection with those games.

Sincerely,

DISSIDENTS CRY "FOUL" AS WORLD
LEARNS OF "OLYMPIC CRACKDOWN"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- The Olympics are in trouble, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) faces a new controversy, as Chinese dissidents believe they have the "smoking gun" document showing that the Chinese government is misusing its host status for the 2008 Olympics. Amid howls of outrage, dissidents and human rights groups seek to prompt removal of the Olympics from Beijing, China -- and moving the Olympics to Toronto, the runner-up city.

The controversy began last month, when it was uncovered that the Chinese government issued secret orders for an Olympic crackdown -- a human rights crackdown, complete with religious persecution, that names the Olympics as a pretext and reason for rights abuses. The Olympic crackdown was ordered to begin in May, 2000 and continue until 2008. The document ordering this crackdown was released last month by the Free China Movement and the Committee to Investigate Persecution of Religion in China (CIPRC).

The IOC may also be embarrassed by the time frame of the crackdown -- it was ordered to begin over thirteen months before the IOC cast its votes for Beijing. This indicates that Chinese leaders were very confident in the outcome of that vote, over a year in advance. Because this crackdown has already been underway for two years, "there is already a body count from the Olympic crackdown," says John Kusumi, a leading activist, referring to deaths of practitioners from the Falun Gong, a spiritual sect which has been heavily persecuted by China in recent years.

Outrage has begun to appear, as in a widely-circulated Op-Ed of last month titled, "Olympic Misbehavior From China." The Free China Movement and the China Support Network are each directing fire at the International Olympic Committee. The sense of the Chinese pro-democracy movement is that the IOC, to protect the brand name of the Olympics, must remove the Olympics from this flagrant religious and human rights persecution. The China Support Network has launched an action of pressure to "take the Olympics back" from China for 2008, likely moving them to Toronto.

Chinese dissidents this week observed the 13th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. The wounds of that crackdown remain unhealed, and in annual speech making, the dissidents excoriated the new Olympic crackdown. In a ringing speech, John Kusumi of the China Support Network breathed fire at the President of the IOC -- "No way, José! No way, Jacques Rogge!" According to Kusumi,

The China Support Network can scarcely imagine that any editorialist, sports commentator, or sports fan would not be revolted by what we've uncovered. This is a human rights problem in China, and a moral imperative for the IOC. Attaching the Olympic name to a human rights crackdown will never do. This is unacceptable, and by the time you've thought about it, this vile order should produce a visceral, gut revulsion among people with human decency everywhere.

Inserted below this release, find a related Op-Ed column, "Olympic Misbehavior From China."

The China Support Network became the leading group of Americans responding to Tiananmen Square's tragedy in 1989. For the latest of its actions, visit the URL, kusumi.com/action.

May '02 Op-Ed:

Olympic Misbehavior From China