SPORT / Dave Zirin : Taking Back the Dodgers

Dodgers Stadium. Image from Seitivinsfa.
One, two, many Green Bays...
Taking back the Los Angeles Dodgers

By Dave Zirin /The Rag Blog / April 27, 2011

On Friday, I wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times that put forward a common-sense solution to the current ownership disaster that is the Dodgers franchise: public ownership. Last week, Commissioner Bud Selig and Major League Baseball took the unprecedented step of seizing the team from bankrupt chief executive Frank McCourt.

In my column, I asked the question: instead of now selling off this historic franchise to the highest bidder, why not allow the fans to be the new bosses? What if Commissioner Bud Selig and Major League Baseball pursued the solution -- that has been so successful for the Green Bay Packers -- public ownership?

The Dodgers faithful could buy shares in the squad. Then -- like in Green Bay -- 60% of concessions could go to local charities, premium tickets could be made affordable to working class Angelenos, and one of baseball’s most storied teams could repair its ruptured relationship with an alienated fan base.

Let Los Angeles be a baseball town again. Let them truly be the people’s team.

It’s unlikely that Major League Baseball or the sclerotic Selig would want any of this. After all, since 1961, it’s been written explicitly in the league’s bylaws that fan ownership is as forbidden as the spitball or aluminum bats.

Selig sees his number one job as protecting the profits and interests of ownership -- not safeguarding the best interests of the game. Proclaiming to the world that fans can own a team and sports owners are superfluous creatures runs counter to Selig’s very DNA. In other words, I didn’t expect the suggestion to gain much traction at MLB central.

But I also didn’t expect Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn to step up to the plate and swing for the cause. Hahn, the daughter of former City Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, is now running for US Congress. The day following publication, Hahn cited my piece in the LA Times on her campaign website and issued the following statement:

The Dodgers have been previously owned by FOX and the McCourt family, it is clear that the only ones who have the teams best interest at heart are the fans. If elected to Congress, I will introduce an amended version of the "Give Fans A Chance Act" which would allow Major League Baseball teams to be owned and operated by their fans, much like the Green Bay Packers are structured today.

This is an idea whose time has come. Major League Baseball for years has relied on public subsidies to make mountainous profits. We have collectivized the debt and privatized the profit for years in operating the National Pastime. But now, as our states face historic cuts, it’s time for payback.

I spoke to 12th grade LA public school teacher Sarah Knopp, and she said,

Just a percentage of the revenue from merchandise sales could help save the hundreds of art and music teachers being pink-slipped right now. At my small school for at-risk kids, art is one of the main tools that keeps students engaged and practicing higher-order thinking. And we're losing our art teacher.
Then there’s physical education. Maybe Dodger revenue could help us to develop world-class sports programs, rather than cutting them. When I was a public school student, girls' sports were crucial for me during those formative years of self-esteem development. I'm scared that a whole generation of girls (and boys) will suffer the effects of not having those opportunities.

The only way this option could be pursued is with a tremendous amount of pressure. This pressure needs to be of two kinds: popular, fan-based pressure on Major League Baseball, and political pressure on -- and through -- the political powers in LA and California. People should rally, fans should hold up signs, politicians should be questioned, and every union in greater Los Angeles should back Councilwoman Hahn's call.

The Bud Selig alternative involves selling off the team to the highest bidder, with no guarantees this broken franchise would even stay in Los Angeles. On April 24 Selig announced that former member of the George W. Bush inner circle and Ambassador to Japan J. Thomas Schieffer would be running the team. This is not the right direction for the team or the city. The answer lies not in Bush-Land, but Green Bay.

It should be noted that this franchise was founded when it was stolen from the people of Brooklyn, Then the actual Dodgers Stadium was built on the original sin of the Chavez Ravine land grab. At that time, Chavez Ravine was a beloved residential community of Chicanos known to all as “the poor man’s Shangri La."

Shangri-La was seized by the state and handed over to owner Walter O’Malley. Second base now sits on what was once someone’s house. It’s long past time we take the team back. Doing so would rectify the past, aid the present, and maybe play a part in changing the future.

[Dave Zirin is the author of Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love (Scribner) and just made the new documentary Not Just a Game. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. This article was first published at The Nation. Read more articles by Dave Zirin on The Rag Blog.]

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Stefan Wray : Austin Formula One is Shrouded in Secrecy

Formula One's Tavo Hellmund is shown pulling the strings on State Comptroller Susan Combs and State Senator Kirk Watson. Graphic by Ted Wilson / The Rag Blog.
Formula One:
Shrouded in secrecy
With no public involvement

By Stefan Wray / The Rag Blog / July 27, 2010

AUSTIN -- The announcement of the proposed Formula One racetrack location in Austin does not erase the fact that much remains shrouded in secrecy and the project continues to move forward without any real public input or involvement in the process.

Tavo Hellmund, Austin’s Formula One promoter, has done a fantastic job of keeping the project out of public view and away from any opportunity for genuine community engagement and input in decision-making.

Mr. Hellmund kept the project under wraps for at least three years before news broke in May 2010 that he had struck a deal with the don of Formula One, Bernie Ecclestone. In the intervening two months information about the project has come out in fits and starts leaving proponents, detractors, and the media all wondering about the next move.

Even though we have a better idea of where the racetrack will be, there are still a lot of unknowns. The unwillingness on the part of Texas government leaders, such as Governor Rick Perry, Comptroller Susan Combs, and State Senator Kirk Watson, to reveal details of their dealings with Mr. Hellmund exemplifies the lack of transparency with Austin’s Formula One plan.

What is possible to know must be gleaned from media accounts and the public record of the Texas State Legislature. Part of the back story of how Texas, and more so Austin, entered the spotlight of the international racing community -- and raised the ire of a spectrum of Austinites -- is summarized in a July 21 ESPN F1 profile of Mr. Hellmund called “Grand Ambition.”

In 2004 the government in Texas passed a bill to make available a fund to attract major events, such as the Superbowl, World Cup and Olympics to the state. Hellmund noticed that although it wasn't an applicable event, F1 was the only global motorsport which would fit into this category. Hellmund says that he met with his local senator two and a half years ago and applied for F1 to be included. He got what he wanted and this made available up to $25m for every year of Hellmund's contract.

The international readership of the ESPN F1 story probably doesn’t care about the “local senator” that Mr. Hellmund met with two and a half years ago -- in early 2008. But it is obvious to anyone from Central Texas that this article is referring to Austin’s State Senator Kirk Watson.

Yet we still know little else about Mr. Hellmund’s meeting with Sen. Watson or other state leaders over the past years. The Austin American Statesman’s Eric Dexheimer wrote about the unwillingness of Texas officials to disclose information about their efforts to bring Formula One to Austin. Dexheimer said legislative staff “invoked the deliberative process exemption to shield F1-related documents from the office of state Sen. Kirk Watson.” Gov. Perry’s and Comptroller Combs’ staff similarly refused to grant some of the Statesman’s public information requests.

We are, however, not completely in the dark. Much of the record of the Texas State Legislature is available online where it is possible to read the daily record of the House and Senate, as well as committee agendas and minutes, and even watch archival video.

A careful study of the legislative process in 2009 that brought SB 1515 and its companion bill HB 2437 to fruition -- the legislation that allows Mr. Hellmund his annual entitlement of $25 million for 10 years from the major event trust fund administered through the Comptroller’s Office -- is actually rather disappointing.

The review reveals that throughout the entire process the words “Formula One” were verbally mentioned only two times on the record. And in the respective committees in the Senate and House where the bills were discussed only two people from Austin ever testified.

The two who signed up as witnesses and testified were Robert Wood and Don Hoyt. Both are associated with the Comptroller’s Office. Mr. Wood is the current Director of Local Government Assistance and Economic Development at the Comptroller’s Office, while Mr. Hoyt is a retired Comptroller’s Office employee.

Neither Mr. Wood nor Mr. Hoyt ever mentioned Formula One in their testimony.
They were at the hearings to more broadly support the Comptroller’s Office driven bills and to answer questions. They weren’t asked about Formula One.

The the words “Formula One” were only uttered twice: when Sen. Watson introduced his SB 1515 to the Senate Committee on Economic Development and when Rep. Brian McCall introduced his HB 2437 to the House Committee on Technology, Economic Development & Workforce.

These committee hearings could have been opportunities to discuss the value, or lack thereof, of encouraging and helping to fund with public money an event that contributes to air pollution and focuses on carbon-burning machines, unlike the other sports events that have genuine athletes. Other environmental, social, or cultural questions could have been raised. But nothing like this transpired.

When Sen. Watson introduced his bill to the Senate committee on March 23, 2009, all he said was,

It expands the list of eligible major events, which already includes things like the Super Bowl and Final Four, to include Formula One auto races. But let me emphasize that this bill in no way assures that Texas would win or even be involved in a bid to host a Formula One race, but it would allow for that.

Mr. Wood appeared as a resource witness at that March 23rd hearing. He only answered a few general questions from the chair about the initial revenue source and how the fund would be used. Other witnesses that signed up in favor of the bill, but who did not testify, were from Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio.

The same Senate committee held another public hearing on March 30, 2009. This time it was a routine matter of approving a committee substitute for SB 1515 and passing it out of committee on a vote of 3-1 to the full Senate. Again, Mr. Wood was a resource witness, but this time he did not testify.

HB 2437 was introduced on April 6, 2009, before the House Committee on Technology, Economic Development and Workforce where Austin’s Representative Mark Strama was the chair and Representative Eddie Rodriguez a member. The house version also had Austin’s Representative Dawnna Dukes as a co-author.

Again, at that hearing, Formula One was glossed over and mentioned once in passing. Rep. McCall laid out his bill and said,

It makes some technical changes in how the programs will be administered. It changes the names of the events. It opens the length of time over which the Comptroller gauges the incremental tax increases. It expands the list of eligible major events, which already include events like the Super Bowl and the Final Four, to include things like Formula One auto racing.

This committee spent 22 minutes on the bill. There were only a few witnesses testifying in favor, including, once again, Mr. Wood and Mr. Hoyt from Austin. Rep. Strama spent a considerable amount of time asking questions to better understand how the major events trust fund would actually work. He had questions about how to measure the economic impact and about the incremental tax increase. Neither Rep. Strama, nor Rep. Rodriguez asked any questions about Formula One.

The House committee met again on April 16, 2009 and passed a committee substitute for HB 2437 with a vote of 8-0, sending the bill to the full House. Austin’s Strama and Rodriguez were two of the eight.

From that point on, SB 1515 and HB 2437 sailed through the Texas legislature. The only actual objection noted in the Senate record was a procedural one from Sen. Wentworth when Sen. Watson asked to suspend the rules and go directly from second reading to third reading of the bill.

Wentworth said in the Senate:

I cast a "No" vote on the procedural motion to suspend the Constitutional Rule requiring that bills be read on three several days in order to take up and consider CSSBi1515, because in my judgment no circumstance exists in this case to justify the extraordinary act of suspending a requirement of the Texas Constitution.

In the end, the Texas Senate passed SB 1515 by a vote of 26-4 on April 15, 2009. The House version passed a month later on May 20, 2009 with 119 Yeas, 16 Nays, and one Present, not voting.

So that’s it. That’s the extent of the treatment of Formula One in the 2009 Texas Legislature. By no stretch of the imagination can anyone argue that there was deliberation of whether to include Formula One in the bills. On the record the words “Formula One” were uttered twice. And the only two people from Austin who appeared before the hearings were there on behalf of the State of Texas, not on behalf of Austin.

It is important to drive home the fact that these legislative hearings last year have been the only moments so far when Formula One was a matter, scant that it was, before any type of governmental or deliberative body. To date the question of Formula One has not been taken up by Austin’s City Council, by any Council subcommittee, by any board, or commission, or any other governmental entity.

We, the people of Austin, have had zero input in any of the decisions surrounding this Formula One racetrack deal. This is wrong. For a project of this magnitude dependent on such a large amount of public money, there should be a public process.

By most accounts, Comptroller Susan Combs, a Republican, is the elected state official who has been the most aggressive about pushing Mr. Hellmund’s agenda of bringing Formula One to Austin.

Austin Democrats, however, are partly to blame for our situation. They let Formula One slide through without a fight and without alerting their constituents that it was even happening. It was Sen. Watson’s bill in the Senate and Rep. Strama’s committee in the House along with committee member Rep. Rodriguez, plus the co-authorship from Rep. Dukes that together helped get this legislation passed.

In retrospect, if the Austin legislative delegation had been aware of some of the questions now being raised, such as the environmental issues put forth by Austin Sierra Club Chair Chris Lehman, then Formula One’s inclusion in the major events fund might not have slid through so easily.

It is not too late to make amends. Austin Democrats should look for a solution. Maybe it is time for Austin’s legislative leaders, in cooperation with local governmental leaders, to step forward and open a public process in order to conduct a serious inquiry into the question of whether a Formula One racetrack is something Austin really needs.

[Stefan Wray is a writer, environmental activist, Drupal web project manager, documentary maker, and resident of Austin’s Montopolis neighborhood.]

• Also see "Formula None: Is Austin Cruisin' For a Bruisin'?" by Stefan Wray / The Rag Blog / June 30, 2010

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Mack Royal : Darrell and Edith

Darrell and Edith

By Mack Royal / The Rag Blog / April 12, 2010

Tornado Alley is something that is pretty easy to define. It’s where tornadoes are most likely to occur. The Bible Belt, on the other hand, is a bit more mysterious. It doesn’t surprise me, however, that these areas cover a lot of common property. If I lived in tornado alley, I might pray more often too.

If you take the tornadoes and bible-thumping, add a healthy population of rattlesnakes, coyotes, sandy soil, and a Wild West culture, then you will have a picture of where both of my parents were born. Old Greer County, Oklahoma, was in the southwest corner of the state, down on the Red River.

Darrell K. Royal was born in Hollis in 1924. Edith Marie Thomason was born in 1925 on a small farm nineteen miles away.

It’s not all prairie dogs and flat farmland. There are some trees and hilly parts and places to fish.

It’s tough, but livable.


Quanah Parker lived in the neighborhood.

He retired from the warpath in 1875 and settled in Cache, Oklahoma Territory. He had at least five wives and around 25 children. It is estimated that 18 of Quanah’s children survived childhood. Most of them lived in the area.

Edith’s grandfather, Oscar Thomason, lived about 75 miles west of Cache near Russell.


The family story is that Oscar was traveling through Cache in a covered wagon in 1906. Quanah looked into the wagon and saw four-year-old Alfred Marion Thomason, rubbed him on the head, and called him “cubby bear." From then on, Oscar’s third son was known as Cub.


I asked my grandpa Cub one time why he had an animal name and why my uncles were called “Duck” and “Goose." He said to me, “Oh, it’s just something that the Indians around here used to do.” I caught a little twinkle in his eye. The names didn’t sound unusual to my young ears. I grew up hearing those names and visiting that farm at the end of the road, one hill away from the Salt Fork of the Red River.

I asked him this question when I was about nine years old. From the time he answered me that way, I started noticing how much my grandpa Cub actually looked like an Indian. He lived pretty much like a peaceful Indian, very simply and close to nature. He raised crops and animals on a small farm.

Cub had one drawer for himself in the house. It contained rattlesnake rattles, pennies, rolling papers, a can of Prince Albert tobacco, and sometimes a pipe. Cub had a very quiet way of talking. He explained to me about how it was with the “laws” and the “outlaws” in his youth. I know for sure he wasn’t a friend of the laws.

He was telling me stories of when he roamed on horseback with his friends and people wore guns on their hips. His grandfather, Francis Marion Thomason came from Cherokee County, Texas. There are rumors of his connection to the Jesse James gang there.



My grandma Addie Mae had blue eyes, very light skin and laughed a lot. She could also be pretty stern. She listened to the preachers on the radio and went to the little country church regularly. I went with her enough to get the feel of it. There were tears, shouting, waving of hands, and singing. She once gave me her opinion of a visiting preacher with the words “crocodile tears."


She was from the Morrell family. Lafayette Morrell, a Frenchman, had gone to California looking for gold. Then the family moved to Oklahoma but would travel back to California. The trip took about 18 days in 1920. Cub went along on one of these trips with Addie Mae and they were married in Santa Ana, California. They returned to Greer County and raised Edith and her three younger brothers on the Salt Fork farm.


Darrell K Royal was born with three older brothers and two older sisters in the nearby town of Hollis.

The Royals and Harmons had been in Old Greer County about as long as the Thomasons and Morrells. The main difference between the tribes was that Edith’s family preferred the country and farm life and Darrell’s family lived in the towns.


Even though you couldn’t call the area crowded with people, it took some time for Darrell and Edith to actually meet.

Darrell was the youngest child of Burley and Katie Royal. Katie died just a few months after Darrell was born. His older sisters also died young. When Darrell was about six years old, Ruby died, and when he was about 13, Mahota died. Even though his three older brothers were there to help, they were all bereft of mother and sisters. Other family members pitched in to help raise the Royal boys, but there were empty spaces that needed filling.


Edith, on the other hand, was the eldest child and helped raise three younger brothers. She was taught by her mother and her aunts. She learned how to care for three younger brothers and survive on a farm.


When Darrell finally met Edith, they were in high school. They have been together since they met.

[Mack Royal's father, Darrell K. Royal, is the winningest football coach in University of Texas history and is in the College Football Hall of Fame.]

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SPORT / Earl From the Grave : Tiger and the Nike Ad

The Nike ad:
Tiger the Brand finally conquers Tiger the Man

By Dave Zirin / April 9, 2010

Why is the new Nike ad with a downcast yet proudly resilient Tiger Woods hearing the voice of his dead father making me so furious? It defies logic.

After all, we just came through a week during which we saw film footage of the U.S. military taking part in what is being called "collateral murder." Death threats have been sent to Democratic members of Congress by right wing lunatics for the crime of passing a healthcare bill that could have been penned by Mitt Romney. And then take Pope Benedict and his Catholic defenders. Seriously. Please take them. I'd suggest somewhere hot.

In the context of our enduring global fever-dream, a tacky ad in which Nike and Tiger conspire to exploit the memory of Earl Woods is hardly that big a deal -- particularly since if Earl Woods were alive, he would have supported this exercise in grave robbing 100 percent.

But the idea that Tiger and Nike would see the incredible turmoil that has engulfed Tiger's life as an opportunity to rebrand Tiger and sell us more swoosh-laden crap is simply sickening. Every single member of the golf media and every fan who has felt sympathy for his self-destructive plight should feel like a grade-A sucker.

Every person impressed with his professed recommitment to the Buddhist faith and his family should be deeply offended that it was all just a springboard aimed at cashing in. And every golf fan and pro golfer should be furious that he's shellacked another layer of controversy onto the most prestigious tournament on the tour, the Masters at Augusta.

There is a small part of me delighted that Tiger's awful ad will further cloud an event whose history of segregation and exclusion would even give pause to our Confederate Governor of Virginia, "Robert E." McDonnell.

But any joy at the discomfort of grown men with ten-figure bank accounts named Hootie and Billy is outpaced by the sheer cultural rock bottom that this ad represents, not to mention what it says about Woods himself.

I really believed that in the wake of his Odyssey of scandal and humiliation, there would be a showdown inside Tiger's soul between the brand and the man. I couldn't have been more wrong. There is no man, only brand.

If he wants to dehumanize himself on his own time then more power to him. But this ad dehumanizes all of us. One thing however is abundantly clear: If Tiger loses this weekend, Nike loses as well. Neither deserve to make the cut, on the course or otherwise. Tiger the brand has now wholly consumed Tiger the man.

[Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.]

Source / The Nation

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James Howard Kunstler : A Blue Christmas with Avatar and Tiger

Blue Christmas

What is most amazing about Mr. Cameron's holiday blockbuster is the explicit message that America is a society that deserves to be punished (and humiliated!) by others who manage their own relations with reality better than we do.

By James Howard Kunstler / December 21, 2009

As the end-credits rolled for James Cameron's new movie, Avatar, the audience burst into rowdy applause. It seemed to me that they were applauding the sheer computerized dazzlement of the show -- but in the story itself they had just watched the U.S. suffers a humiliating defeat on a distant planet. In the final frames, American soldiers and the corporate executives they had failed to protect were shown lined up as prisoners-of-war about to embark on a death march.

More to the point, the depiction of our national character through the whole course of the film was of a thuggish, cruel, cynical, stupid, detestable, and totally corrupt people bent on the complete destruction of nature. Nice. And the final irony was that Cameron had used theatrical technology of the latest and greatest kind to depict America's broader techno-grandiosity -- as the army's brute robotic warriors fell to the spears and arrows of the simple blue space aliens.

Altogether, it was a weird moment in entertainment history, and perhaps in the American experience per se. No doubt audiences overseas will go wild with delight, too, but perhaps with a clearer notion of what they are clapping for than the enthralled masses of zombie Americans.

The infatuation with technology, and the disgusting cockiness that goes with it (so well-captured in Avatar), is but one facet of the psychosis gripping the nation -- and by that I mean the profound detachment from reality. We have no idea what is happening to us and, naturally, no idea of what we are going to do.

I sat in a bar Friday evening with a financial reporter from a national newspaper, trying to explain the peak oil situation and what it implied for our economy. He had never heard it before. The relationship between energy resources and massive debt was new to him. (It also came up in conversation that he could not tell me what the Monroe Doctrine was about, despite a history degree from Yale.) There you have a nice snapshot of the mainstream media in this land.

This year, America can look for a nice lump of coal in its Christmas stocking. That lump will be called "the recovery." This recovery consists of a massive self-deception, made up of accounting tricks and falsified statistics, with a sugar-coating on top of sheer disbelief that the outcome could be anything but a particular happy ending -- namely, the continued levitation of the unsustainable.

What is most amazing about Mr. Cameron's holiday blockbuster is the explicit message that America is a society that deserves to be punished (and humiliated!) by others who manage their own relations with reality better than we do. I wonder how much that will secretly account for its popularity. I wonder what the leaders of China will make of it.

The other current embodiment of national character failure, Tiger Woods, golfer, has also dazzled the American public. Personally I find it much more interesting to learn that he was a really lousy tipper than that he got a lot of action on the side with opportunistic bar girls, porn stars, and other denizens of the sports-entertainment netherworld.

Is it not also amusing that golf is even taken seriously as an athletic pursuit? I mean, why not pancake-flipping? Or dice? Or shooting rats at the landfill? This is the kind of knucklehead culture we have become after six decades of the softest life imaginable. Anyway, I'm not shedding any tears for Tiger. Even if all his endorsements dry up and his ex-wife takes him to the cleaners for a hundred million or so, he'll still be left with enough cash to pay for porn stars and lobster tails until the end of time, especially if he keeps his tipping policy at its current level.

Source / Clusterfuck Nation

Thanks to Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

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Worldwide Protests On Eve of China Olympics

Tibetans protest in India ahead of Olympics.
Demonstrations 'pressure Beijing over its rule of Tibet and heavily Muslim Xinjiang province, the arrests of dissidents, Internet censorship and concerns about Chinese foreign policy'
August 8, 2008

PARIS - Police banned demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Paris on Thursday but critics of China’s human rights record stepped up protests elsewhere in the world to mark the start of the Beijing Olympics.

Police in the French capital said they did not want a repeat of the “violent disturbances” that broke out in April when the Olympic torch passed through Paris, when activists angry at China’s crackdown in Tibet disrupted the route.

They banned any protests outside the embassy on Thursday and Friday, when the Games officially open, including a demonstration planned Friday by a coalition including media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

RSF is challenging the ruling in court, and a separate rally at the Trocadero plaza near the Eiffel Tower will still go ahead as planned at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) Friday, to coincide with the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing.

China has painted the Games as a celebration of three decades of economic reforms and hopes the event will showcase a rapidly modernising country.

But activists across the world are using the Games
A total of 127 athletes, including more than 40 competing in the Games, have called on China’s President Hu Jintao to seek a peaceful solution to the Tibet issue and improve the rights situation, according to an open letter posted online.

In Washington, scores of activists protested in front of the Chinese embassy, shouting “Beijing Olympics, Genocide Olympics,” “China lie, People die” and “Stop the killing in Tibet, Stop the Killing in East Turkestan.”

“The Beijing Games is supposed to reflect peace and human rights but the Chinese government is continuing its crackdown on our innocent people, detaining and executing them,” charged Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of Uighurs in Xinjiang, a vast area that borders Central Asia.

Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people, have expressed anger at what they say has been decades of repressive communist Chinese rule in Xinjiang.

Security was tight with policemen and police cars lined up in front of the embassy.

Jo Jinhae, a 21-year old North Korean who fled to the United States, was on her sixth day of a hunger strike Thursday in front of the embassy, protesting Beijing’s forced repatriation of North Korean refugees from China.

“The human rights abuses of North Korean refugees must stop,” said Jo, who had been jailed four times in North Korea after being repatriated from China. She said she had been informed her three brothers had died on repatriation.

In Ottawa, some 300 protestors demonstrated against rights violations for a second consecutive day in front of the Chinese embassy.

Five people had briefly chained themselves to the gates of the embassy the previous day.

On Thursday, they were joined by a former beauty queen and members of Parliament, as well as groups pressing for Tibet independence, democracy in Myanmar, peace in Sudan and press and religious freedoms.

“The plethora of different groups here represents a plethora of different causes, each of them a category of human rights abuses in China,” MP and former attorney general Irwin Cotler told AFP.

In India, home to more than 100,000 Tibetan refugees including the Dalai Lama, about 1,000 Tibetans staged a march in New Delhi, carrying Tibetan flags and shouting “Say no to Beijing Olympics” and “No Olympics in China.”

In neighbouring Nepal about 600 Tibetans were detained after they clashed with police while protesting in Kathmandu, police and eyewitnesses said.

About 1,500 Tibetan exiles had gathered in the city to demonstrate against the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. The clashes broke out after monks and nuns praying and chanting mantras refused to disperse.

In Beijing itself, three US Christians were forcefully dragged from Tiananmen Square — scene of a 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters — as they prayed publicly, according to a statement on their behalf.

On Wednesday, two US and two British activists had staged a dramatic protest in the city, unveiling giant “Free Tibet” banners near the stadium where the Games will open– a move that got them immediately deported, their group said.

In London the Free Tibet campaign was due to hold a protest in front of the Chinese embassy on Friday. They planned to unveil Tibetan flags there at 1208 GMT — the moment when the Olympics officially kick off.

© 2008 Agence France Presse

Source / AFP / CommonDreams

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Amnesty International : China Using Olympics As ‘Pretext’ For Crackdown

A Chinese paramilitary policeman tries to block photos being taken outside the Olympic Stadium. Photo by AFP.
Repression of 'human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers has intensified'
July 29, 2008

HONG KONG - China is using the Beijing Olympics as a pretext to pursue — and in some cases tighten — a crackdown on human rights, notably ridding the capital of “undesirables,” Amnesty International charged Monday.

Reporting 11 days ahead of the August 8 opening ceremony, the rights group said that despite some minor reforms, authorities had stepped up repression of activists and lawyers to present a picture of stability and harmony.

Amnesty urged the International Olympic Committee and political leaders to do far more to challenge China, warning of even more repressive measures once the spotlight on the Games has faded away.

“Unless the authorities make a swift change of direction, the legacy of the Beijing Olympics will not be positive for human rights in China,” it warned.

“In fact, the crackdown on human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers has intensified because Beijing is hosting the Olympics.”

Amnesty’s report, citing specific cases, said activists who had tied their cause to the Games had been singled out for the pre-Olympics “clean-up,” while many others were being detained, imprisoned or placed under house arrest.

“Authorities have used the Olympic Games as a pretext to continue and in some respects, intensify existing policies and practices that have led to serious and widespread violations of human rights,” the report added.

It listed a series of recommendations urging China to:

* release all prisoners of conscience;

* stop police arbitrarily detaining activists and dissenters;

* impose a moratorium on the death penalty;

* allow complete media freedom; and

* account for those killed or detained in Tibet.

“It is very disturbing that Chinese authorities have indulged in such a big crackdown on the activists,” Mark Allison, China researcher for Amnesty, told AFP.

“These are people who represent many many more people in China.”

Officials were also extending the use of punitive administrative detention, notably of activists and petitioners as well as beggars and peddlers, Amnesty said.

In January, Beijing police launched a campaign against “illegal activities that tarnish the city’s image and affect the social order,” it noted.

In May, authorities adopted a “re-education through labour” law to control various types of “offending behaviour.”

In June, authorities in Shanghai sent notices to activists and petitioners ordering them to report to the police every week and barring them from leaving without permission or visiting Beijing until after the Games.

A clampdown on journalists has also intensified in recent months, Amnesty said, citing figures from the Foreign Correspondents Club of China showing as many as 230 cases of reporters being obstructed from interviews this year so far, compared to 180 cases in the whole of last year.

Internet controls have also been tightened up and many websites closed down for providing information deemed sensitive, the group noted.

Amnesty said that journalists working from Beijing’s Olympic press centre were unable to access the group’s website, as well as those of the BBC, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, and Taiwan newspaper Liberty Times.

“This flies in the face of official Chinese promises to ensure ‘complete media freedom’ for the Games,” said Allison.

Such tactics raised concerns that officials would seek to block broadcasts of anything deemed sensitive or inappropriate, despite public commitments by organisers not to cut coverage.

Amnesty said China’s crackdown in Tibet earlier this year, and restrictions on reporting there, highlighted the authorities’ ongoing censorship.

It urged the IOC and the international community to express concerns publicly and press China to fulfil its obligations on human rights and dissent.

“The danger now becomes that after the Olympic Games, these patterns of serious human rights violations may continue or intensify with even less attention paid by the international community than has been the case so far,” it said.

© 2008 Agence France Presse

Source / AFP / CommonDreams

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