Bay Area Activists Protest One-Year Countdown To Beijing Olympics
August 8th, 2007 marks the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and already protests are dominating next year’s Games. Six Tibet supporters, including two Bay Area residents, were today released from Chinese detention after unfurling a protest banner on China’s Great Wall two days ago. In Delhi, India, fourteen Tibetans entered the 32nd day of an indefinite hunger strike, aimed at pressuring the Chinese government to change its policies in Tibet. Tibetans and their supporters around the globe marked the one-year countdown with an International Day of Action, protesting under the banner of “Team Tibet” at Chinese consulates and embassies, from London to New Delhi, Mexico City to Cape Town.
The newly formed San Francisco Team Tibet coalition called on Mayor Gavin Newsom to revoke the city’s agreement to host the Chinese torch. San Francisco is currently the only city in North America scheduled to host the increasingly controversial flame.
If we stand by and clap as this tainted torch passes through our city,said Dawa Dorjee of San Francisco Team Tibet,
we become complicit in Chinese state propaganda and the brutal policies in my home country that they are trying to cover up with the glamour of these Games.
Local Tibetan community leaders, and the friends and family of Modi and Martinez, were among those calling on the city to rebuke the torch that is ever more associated with Chinese occupation and state-sanctioned repression. The colorful downtown demonstration featured young Tibetan women flying a large floating protest banner with helium weather balloons, and lanky stilt walkers dressed as Team Tibet athletes.
I think the mayor has gravely miscalculated his constituency by thinking that we are willing to ignore China's horrific human rights record and welcome this controversial torch with open arms,said Laurel Sutherlin, Martinez’s partner.
By accepting this torch, San Francisco is placing itself on the global podium: We're asking the people of San Francisco: is genocide and occupation what we want to stand for?
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