[CGECngjA]

Thousands of Police attempted to protect the Olympic Torch on its 30 mile journey around London yesterday. Peaceful protesters angry against China's hijacking of the Olympic Torch for their own political propaganda were met with heavy handed policing reminiscent of China’s own totalitarian security services went to absurd lengths to protect the torch and highly trained “representatives” of China’s own security forces (seen in the blue tracksuits) who had freedom to attack British people protesting in their own country.

You have to see this to believe it…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/new...asx?ad=1&ct=50

The torch will soon come to America...

[gechaheritt]

I don't think the police were too aggressive. It's not a peaceful protest when you try to take the Olympic torch and put it out. Despite the barbaric behaviour of China, the British police have a responsibility to remain impartial and respect the safety of those marching whilst allowing for people to protest. I think they got the balance broadly right.

[SDorothy28]

I could not disagree with you more. The simple act of providing that level of intimadatory protection for what was and is a blatant propaganda tool for the Chinese government is in and of itself an aggressive act. The inclusion and protection of, by the Met, the Chinese government's own thugs in the farce was simply disgraceful.

I can't see how the ITV camera man being twice thrown to the floor by the filth and once kicked in the teeth and once cracked over the head requiring stiches by them simply for doing his job peacefully can be excused, nor the young Tibetan woman pinned against the wall by a police baton to the throat in front of her little boy or the British museum curator whilst brought under control by four police officers was then repeatedly kidney punched by a fourth until he hit the deck where he could more conveniently be kicked by them was in any way not violent? I guess some people see what they want to see.

The message the Met is sending our here is exactly the same as the Chinese send out in China and in Tibet; don't even think of protesting against the state (and make no mistake this WAS a state event) - we will swamp you with our presence and overwhelm you with force of numbers. If we can get a few kicks, elbows and sly punches in then that's just the a bonus. Britain in the new millenium

Still - on the positive side the Met created, in front of the entire world a comical farce deeply embarressing themselves, the government, the Chinese, the Olympic movement and the country. Result!

As I write the same thing is occuring in Paris.

[polleroy]

Facing the same types of protests seem in London, Olympic officials escorting the torch in Paris have twice purposely extinguished it to thwart sabotage.

[Ceriopal]

In line with its ongoing efforts to improve air-quality, China puts the Olympic torch on the bus.



Olympic Torch Relay in Paris Disrupted; Flame on Bus

By Gregory Viscusi
Enlarge Image/Details

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- The passage of the Olympic flame through Paris was disrupted, with police twice placing the torch on a bus after failing to keep pro-Tibetan protesters at bay.

The flame was carried from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower today to cross Paris on its way to the Beijing games. Within the first hour of its intended four-hour tour, it was temporarily extinguished for technical reasons, i-Tele news channel reported.

The torch was placed aboard a bus as protesters against China's crackdown in Tibet blocked its path. At least five people were arrested, Agence France-Presse said.

The first person carrying the flame on today's 28-kilometer (18-mile) run through the French capital was Stephane Diagana, the 1997 400-meter world champion hurdler.

The Paris leg of the relay was accompanied by 48 police cars, 65 motorcycles, 100 policemen on roller blades, and 100 jogging firemen whose aim was to avert protests such as those that held up the flame's progress through London yesterday.

Robert Menard, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based rights group that disrupted the lighting of the Olympic flame in Greece on March 24, called the Paris security measures ``shameful.'' He called in a statement for protests that won't block the relay.

Paris City Hall, which is on the route, hung a banner saying ``Paris Defends Human Rights Throughout the World.''

Tibet Riots

China is facing international criticism for its crackdown in Tibet in response to last month's riots in the capital, Lhasa, and neighboring provinces, the most serious protests in 20 years.

The U.S. and European Union said they won't boycott the August Olympics after French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the issue last month.

The French president will monitor China's progress on rights before deciding whether to attend the Beijing opening ceremonies, his spokesman said. France will hold the European Union's rotating presidency for the second half of this year, making Sarkozy the EU's leading statesman during that time.

Police arrested 37 people during yesterday's demonstrations in London. One protester tried to put out the torch with a fire extinguisher and another attempted to grab it from Konnie Huq, a television personality who was one of the people carrying the flame. There were no injuries, London police said.

Chinese View

China views the demonstrations as contrary to the Olympic spirit because the torch belongs to the world, China's official Xinhua News Agency cited an unidentified spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee as saying yesterday. Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, also condemned any use of violence during the relay, Agence France-Presse reported.

The relay is planned to be the longest in Olympic history, covering 137,000 kilometers and 21 countries where it will be carried by 20,000 bearers. After Paris, the flame will be flown to San Francisco and then to Buenos Aires.

It is scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong on May 2 and mainland China two days later. The flame is due to pass through Tibet from June 19 to 21, when it will be taken to the summit of Mount Everest.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, supports holding the Games in Beijing and called on Tibetans not to disrupt the event, according to a statement on his Web site.

China, which sent troops to Tibet in 1950 and annexed the Himalayan region a year later, accuses the Dalai Lama of trying to divide the country and has rejected his assurances he is seeking autonomy, not independence, for Tibet.

The Dalai Lama set up a government-in-exile in northern India when he fled Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: April 7, 2008 08:03 EDT

[erubresen]

Olympic torch arrives in San Francisco on Wednesday

By Jessie Mangaliman, Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News

Article Launched:04/07/2008 01:35:14 AM PDT

PLANNED TORCH ROUTE; TIBETANS, SUPPORTERS PLAN RALLY

The Olympic torch will make its only North American stop in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The torch relay will follow a six-mile route, beginning at 1 p.m. at McCovey Cove at AT&T Park, following the Embarcadero, past Fisherman's Wharf, and ending at Justin Herman Plaza.

Visit the official torch relay Web site, http://torchrelay.beijing2008.cn/en/

Tibetans and their supporters will hold a rally Tuesday at the United Nations Plaza, at Market Street and Hyde Street near the Civic Center BART, to protest the Olympic torch relay and China's recent crackdown on protesting Tibetans in Lhasa.

Actor Richard Gere and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu will be at guest speakers at the rally, which begins at 6 p.m.

There are planned Tibetan protests on the day of the torch relay, but details have not been released. Visit sfteamtibet.org for more information.

- Jessie Mangaliman, Mercury News


San Francisco is already primed by the arrival on Saturday, April 05 of the Human Rights Torch Relay

The Human Rights Torch Relay will be in NYC on Saturday, April 12.

[fotochicaes]

I feel bad for the people carrying the torch. While I do not agree with China and what they are doing, some of these people really need to step back and STOP TRYING TO DISRUPT AN ESSENTIALLY SYMBOLIC ACT THAT HAS LITTLE, IF ANYTHING, TO DO WITH CHINA AND ITS POLICIES.

If people would spend half the effort actually pressuring their elected officials to do something, the effect would be much greater than running out and grabbing a stupid industrial cigarette lighter and getting tackled by cops on rollerblades.

No, I do not agree with China, many of its policies, and the way it is handling the Olympic development in Bejing. But I am not going to run out and tackle a previous olympian because of it.

The cops probably ARE getting heavy handed, but at the same time some of these protesters are not helping things.

[Intiltern]

If people would spend half the effort actually pressuring their elected officials to do something, the effect would be much greater than running out and grabbing a stupid industrial cigarette lighter and getting tackled by cops on rollerblades.

No, I do not agree with China, many of its policies, and the way it is handling the Olympic development in Bejing. But I am not going to run out and tackle a previous olympian because of it.

The cops probably ARE getting heavy handed, but at the same time some of these protesters are not helping things.[/quote]

Yes but to be fair in London at least many of the torch bearers were minor celebs directed by their agents and PR agencies to get "face time" in the media and had no connection with sport. Others that were sports people were not athletes and yet more were ex-athletes seeking publicity to support their "media" careers. Plenty of athletes and others simply refused to take part.

I don't think you are correct in saying the torch is AN ESSENTIALLY SYMBOLIC ACT THAT HAS LITTLE, IF ANYTHING, TO DO WITH CHINA AND ITS POLICIES. Otherwise why are they so protecting of it and why are they choosing to run it through Lhasa and to the top of the highest peak in Tibet? Just to rub their noses in it I say.

I hear that in San Francisco there will be a "Free Tibet" flame running alongside the torch? Good for you.

At least the Americans have the balls to stand up the the Chinese.

[FjFHQLJQ]

I think that, in a world where most demonstrations (at least in the West) are about absolute bullsh!t (don't liek MCD's?? don't eat there, dumb#ss!), I find the rising critcism of global complicity in the criminal gang known as the PRC government very encouraging.

[AdobebePhoto]

As I posted here:
The torch relay that culminates in the ceremonial lighting of the flame at the Olympic stadium was ordered by Adolf Hitler, who tried to make the 1936 Berlin Games a celebration of the Third Reich. Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine also popularized the five interlocking rings as the symbol of the Games.

Now, both are universally recognized icons of the Olympics. But historians say neither had much, if anything, to do with the Games born centuries ago in ancient Olympia.

"The torch relay is so ingrained in the modern choreography that most people today assume it was a revival of a pagan tradition - unaware that it was actually concocted for Hitler's Games in Berlin," the author Tony Perrottet wrote in "The Naked Olympics" (Random House, 2004).
.....

The torch relay, memorialized in Leni Riefenstahl's film, "Olympia," was part of Hitler's elaborate attempt to add myth, mystique and glamour to an Olympics intended to intimidate pre-World War II Europe. In Hitler's eyes, the torch symbolized the perfection and victory of the German nation.
That individuals with a conscience are disrupting what is essentially Nazi propaganda is a good sign for humanity IMO.
Activists have been protesting along the torch route since the flame embarked on its 85,000-mile journey from Ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing.

The torch's round-the-world trip is the longest in Olympic history, and it is meant to shine a spotlight on China's economic and political power. Activists have seized upon it as a backdrop for their causes, angering Beijing.

Political pressure against China is substantial in France.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has left open the possibility of boycotting the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing depending on how the situation evolves in Tibet. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday that was still the case.
*****

To update my above post, Olympic officials in Paris have THRICE purposely extinguished the torch.

[JacomoR]

I could not disagree with you more. The simple act of providing that level of intimadatory protection for what was and is a blatant propaganda tool for the Chinese government is in and of itself an aggressive act. The inclusion and protection of, by the Met, the Chinese government's own thugs in the farce was simply disgraceful.

The British police were trying to preserve the peace, the Chinese forces are killing desenters. Rather different I think. Our country has a proud tradition of allowing peaceful demonstration, from the million who marched agains the war in Iraq in 2003, to the anti-Aparteid and CND demonstrations of the 80s, the anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the 60s, to the Chartists and female suffrage campaigners. Your cynicism is toxic, the British government has frequently criticised China's human rights policy and David Miliband, in his most famous speech, warned against the damage China was doing to worldwide democracy.

One does get the impression things did get a little out of hand, but when the anti-China protestors were effectively attacking the torch-bearers, I think a degree of sympathy should be shown for the police. I don't know about the specific examples you've listed. The only policy of the police's I do disagree with was not recognising the fact that there were effectively two demonstrations; pro-Chinese and an anti-Chinese and instead treating the Chinese as "supporters" and so not policing them properly.

It's better that this torch relay gets continually disrupted across the civilised world than western leaders opportunistically boycott when our countries trade billions with China. A sporting boycott would only be justifiable, as in Aparteid South Africa, if accompanied with an economic blockade.

[AnetTeilor]

Olympic Torch Goes Out, Briefly, in Paris
By KATRIN BENNHOLD and JOHN F. BURNS
Published: April 8, 2008


Retired French tennis player Arnaud Di Pasquale carried an extinguished Olympic torch to a bus for safe keeping amid pro-Tibet protests in Paris on Monday.

PARIS — What was supposed to be a majestic procession for the Olympic torch through the French capital was disrupted Monday as thousands of people from around Europe, many with Tibetan flags, massed to protest the passage of the flame, forcing police officers to bring the torch onto a bus to try to protect it and causing the torch to be extinguished at least once.

A police spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with policy, said the torch went out “for technical reasons” unrelated to the protests, without offering further clarification. CNN reported that the torch was extinguished at least twice amid the melee, and The Associated Press said officials were forced to extinguish the flame three times amid security concerns.

Despite tremendous security, at least two activists got within almost an arm’s length of the flame before they were grabbed by police officers, The A.P. reported. Officers tackled numerous protesters to the ground and carried some away.

It was yet another unscripted moment in the passage of the Olympic flame, and the second time in two days that the torch relay had been disrupted in a European capital.

Some 3,000 police officers in Paris — on foot, horseback, roller blades, motorbikes and even boats in the river Seine — tried to prevent a repeat of the scenes in London on Sunday, when the torch’s progression through the streets turned into a tumult of scuffles. One man broke through a tight security cordon in the London protests and made a failed grab for the torch, and 35 people were arrested.

China’s official Xinhua news agency on Monday condemned the “vile misdeeds” of protesters in London.

In Beijing, a spokeswoman for the city’s Olympic organizing committee said at a hurriedly organized news conference held before the problems in France that the relay would continue on its international route regardless of protests. “The torch represents the Olympic spirit and people welcome the torch,” said Wang Hui, the spokeswoman.


A French police officer approached a protester during the Olympic torch relay in Paris on Monday.

The news conference was apparently intended to address Sunday’s protests in London. Ms. Wang blamed the disruptions in London on a “few Tibet separatists” and described their actions as the work of saboteurs. She said Beijing’s Olympic organizers “strongly condemned” the Tibetan protesters.

“The general public is very angry at this sabotage by a few separatists,” she said. “During the torch relay, we met with some disturbances, but we believe that all the peace-loving people in the world will support the torch relay.”

Jacques Rogge, the chairman of the International Olympic Committee, used a meeting in Beijing both to criticize the London protests, but also to call for a rapid and peaceful solution to confrontations in Tibet.

French authorities appeared determined to try to spare China — and Paris — similar embarrassment or disorder as London, resorting to measures normally reserved for a visiting head of state. A police helicopter circling overhead, for example. Their efforts drew scorn from the French protesters who angrily noted the heavy police presence.

Officers with machine guns guarded sensitive Metro exits along the 17 mile route.

“One would almost think oneself in Lhasa,” said Jean-Paul Ribes, leader of the Support Committee of the Tibetan People in France, who was among the thousands massed on the Trocadero square, across the Seine from the Eiffel tower, where the flame began its passage through Paris. “It snowed last night, now the sky is blue — and police are everywhere,” Mr. Ribes said.

Many protesters — demonstrating against China’s human rights policies in general, or for a free Tibet, or simply for a boycott of the Olympics in Beijing — echoed a headline emblazoned across the front page of the left-wing daily Liberation, under a picture of the Olympic rings restyled as handcuffs: “Liberate The Olympic Games!”

Protesters came from all around Europe, including four busloads from Belgium. Lobsang Dechen, a 29-year-old Tibetan refugee living in Belgium for 4 ½ years, said Europeans should help the cause of Tibet by boycotting the Games. ‘’China does not deserve to be the host,” she said. ‘’They have to first learn to respect human rights in Tibet.’

Kevin Khayat, 19, a design student in Paris and a member of the International Federation for Human Rights, said sports should be separated from politics. “I am against a boycott, and in favor of human rights,” he said. He handed stickers to demonstrators urging: “Let’s keep our eyes open.”


Security men tackled a protester, left, as Stephane Diagana, right, the 400-meter world champion in 1997 who is now president of France's national athletics league, carried the Olympic torch at the beginning of its relay from the first floor of the Eiffel tower in Paris on Monday.

In London on Sunday, the torch was relayed on a seven-hour journey from the new Wembley soccer stadium in the city’s northwest to the principal site for the 2012 Summer Olympics in Stratford in the east.

Along the way, numerous protesters seeking to reach the torch were wrestled to the ground by police officers. One man carrying a fire extinguisher narrowly failed to reach the person carrying the torch, but he set off the extinguisher anyway, dousing police officers with foam.

The torch’s London relay was the fourth stop of a global itinerary that began last month in Greece, where pro-Tibetan demonstrators briefly interrupted the torch’s lighting and its subsequent progress through Athens.

Tibetan organizations have said they plan protests at every stop on the torch’s 21-nation tour. After Paris, it moves to San Francisco, its only American stop, on Wednesday. The monthlong tour is scheduled to end in Vietnam; it is to be followed by a six-week, 46-stop tour of China.

The tour could prove jarring for Beijing. What organizers had billed as an occasion to celebrate the Olympics’ sporting ideals of peace and harmony is turning into a contest between China’s supporters and critics.
In London, more than 2,000 police officers were deployed; the security cordon around the torch was so dense that the flame and those carrying it were often barely visible to crowds.



Protesters with Tibetan flags at the Place du Trocadero opposite the Eiffel Tower before the arrival of the Olympics torch relay on Monday.

Caught in the middle are foreign governments. Both Britain and France sought to protect delicate trade and diplomatic relations with China while supporting the Games and yet to also placate those who oppose holding the Olympics in a country with a harsh record for punishing dissent. The centerpiece of the torch parade Sunday was 10 Downing Street, where the Chinese contingent was greeted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Mr. Brown, like President Bush, has said he plans to attend the Games’ opening ceremonies in Beijing in August. That stand has drawn contrasts with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has hinted he may not attend if China’s recent crackdown on Tibetans does not relent.

Under pressure from human rights groups in Britain, Mr. Brown has voiced sympathy for the Tibetan protests. He has also said that he will meet the Dalai Lama in Britain next month, and that he has informed China’s leaders.
The most intense scuffles in London occurred as the torch moved through the heart of the city. The torch, which was carried by a chain of British sports heroes and television celebrities, was protected by an inner guard of Chinese security men in blue and white Olympic tracksuits and an outer cordon of yellow-jacketed British police officers. Some were on foot, while others rode bicycles, motorbikes or horses.

For one long stretch, where streets narrowed and crowds were heavy, the torch was placed in the back of a single-decker bus and driven past the crowds until the police judged it safe for the runners to resume.
The warmest reception for the torch came as it passed through the Chinatown area of central London -- a diversion adopted to let the Chinese ambassador to Britain carry the torch.

A Chinese spokesman, Qu Yingpu, said Chinese officials were grateful to the police “for their efforts to keep order.” He added: “This is not the right time, the right platform, for any people to voice their political views.”
One protester who broke through the police cordon, David Allen, said his anger flared at the sight of British sports stars being guarded in London by Chinese security men.

“It makes us complicit in the regime’s repression,” Allen said. ”You have to ask: Where were these security men last week? Beating up people in the villages of China, no doubt.”


Copyright 2008 New York Times

[DavidQD]

The British police were trying to preserve the peace, the Chinese forces are killing desenters. Rather different I think. Our country has a proud tradition of allowing peaceful demonstration, from the million who marched agains the war in Iraq in 2003, to the anti-Aparteid and CND demonstrations of the 80s, the anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the 60s, to the Chartists and female suffrage campaigners. Your cynicism is toxic, the British government has frequently criticised China's human rights policy and David Miliband, in his most famous speech, warned against the damage China was doing to worldwide democracy.

One does get the impression things did get a little out of hand, but when the anti-China protestors were effectively attacking the torch-bearers, I think a degree of sympathy should be shown for the police. I don't know about the specific examples you've listed. The only policy of the police's I do disagree with was not recognising the fact that there were effectively two demonstrations; pro-Chinese and an anti-Chinese and instead treating the Chinese as "supporters" and so not policing them properly.

It's better that this torch relay gets continually disrupted across the civilised world than western leaders opportunistically boycott when our countries trade billions with China. A sporting boycott would only be justifiable, as in Aparteid South Africa, if accompanied with an economic blockade.

You could have chosen your historical examples with more accuracy! I see a different tradition in British policing; the tradition from the Peterloo Massacre through to the violent suppression of women’s suffrage (imprisonment, force feeding etc) and the destruction of the miners and the battle of Orgreave in the 1980’s and even the Slater Street police riot I personally witnessed in Liverpool. In case you think I’m a pinko leftie I have family members in the police and am an arch capitalist! Let’s stick to the topic plz 

The met embarrassed themselves yet again. The answer to incompetent government is not totalitarianism.






PS remember what our wonderful met did upon the state visit of the Chinese President shortly after New Labour took power? Let me remind you:-


From the BBC
"The Foreign Office has dismissed reports that a police review of the protests during the visit of Chinese president Jiang Zemin will conclude it ordered a crackdown.

Scenes during last year's visit showing anti-China demonstrators being met by a heavy police presence sparked outrage among free speech campaigners.

Some officers were seen confiscating Free Tibet flags and parking their vans to stop the president seeing demonstrators protesting about China's human rights record.


President Zemin was the first Chinese head of state to visit the UK
According to The Sunday Telegraph, a Metropolitan Police review of the visit will blame Foreign Office officials for ordering a crackdown on protesters.

Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude called on Sunday for the resignation of any ministers "subsequently shown to have misled Parliament over this issue".

"We have a duty of courtesy to our overseas visitors, but that must be coupled with respect for the rights of people living in Britain to express their views," he added.

But the Foreign Office has insisted the report will show there was no interference by government officials in police decisions.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "It is certainly our understanding that the report will clearly show that as we said all along the purpose of the discussion and meetings that the FCO had with the police was to take the police through the proposed programme for the Chinese state visit so they could take decisions on operational matters.

Protesters sue police

"There is no question of Foreign Office interference in these decisions."

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "The report is due to be published shortly and it would be inappropriate to comment further."

It has already been disclosed that Foreign Office officials met police eight times before the visit, when the concerns of the Chinese authorities about demonstrations were discussed.

Official notes are to be kept in future of meetings between the police and the Foreign Office about visits by foreign dignitaries, to avoid any future confusion.

The Free Tibet Campaign group is currently suing the Metropolitan police for what it says is unreasonable and unlawful suppression of demonstrations.

If the action goes ahead as planned on 3 May, government officials could be questioned in court."

[Allbrunette]

No, they did not embarrass themselves. They did their jobs.

On topic, I am all for freedom to protest but the Tibetan protesters are beginning to hurt their cause and need to stop and go back to more peaceful ways of protest as it was before. The news is now focused on the actual protests than what is the reason behind them.

[Bridgester]

Aggressive protests are sometimes needed to bring attention to the issue.

It seems that none of the protesters are inflicting harm on anyone -- or on property, for that matter.

They are simply attempting to extinguish a flame. A flame can be re-ignited with no muss or fuss.

China may find that certain things are not as easily controlled as the leaders there might wish. And that the government there cannot distract folks from seeing what they are up to or hide those facts from the world.

The torch protests are shining a light on situations that the news outlets / mass media have otherwise failed to give much attention to.

[Green_Monkey23]

I think anyone who has any interest in this knows what it's about. There is no reason to explain it any further.

Just draw attention to it,


I guess San Francisco was chosen as the U.S. city partly because of its high profile Chinatown.

I bet they wished they picked something safer, like San Diego.

Hopefully, San Franciscans will act up.

[scemHeish]

But I no longer see the Tibet issue as prominent in coverage, now its more like the actual protest is the news and the reason for the protest is now no more than a sub-plot to the story.

[Ingeborga]

Thousands of Police attempted to protect the Olympic Torch on its 30 mile journey around London yesterday. Peaceful protesters angry against China's hijacking of the Olympic Torch for their own political propaganda were met with heavy handed policing reminiscent of China’s own totalitarian security services went to absurd lengths to protect the torch and highly trained “representatives” of China’s own security forces (seen in the blue tracksuits) who had freedom to attack British people protesting in their own country.

You have to see this to believe it…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/new...asx?ad=1&ct=50

The torch will soon come to America...

I saw the blue tracksuited chinamen and thought to myself, why dont they have those in NYC when Im crossing the street and nearly run over by delivery guys on bikes.

Then I thought, no, actually these guys are like the SS of the 21st Century.

And these games will go down as the 2nd Berlin Olympics.

[ticskebasse]

I don't think the police were too aggressive. It's not a peaceful protest when you try to take the Olympic torch and put it out. Despite the barbaric behaviour of China, the British police have a responsibility to remain impartial and respect the safety of those marching whilst allowing for people to protest. I think they got the balance broadly right.

With people like you, who needs evil governments.

Why dont you volunteer to defend the Sacred Right of the Peoples of The Great China to Bludgeon Protesters On the Head with Tracksuited Morons.

It would be Glorious!

[6ZCo3xuK]

I guess San Francisco was chosen as the U.S. city partly because of its high profile Chinatown.

I bet they wished they picked something safer, like San Diego.

Hopefully, San Franciscans will act up.

No doubt they will ...

San Francisco readies security blanket for Olympic torch

AFP / BreitBart.com
April 7, 2008

An unprecedented security blanket will be draped across San Francisco for the US leg of the Olympic flame's global relay here Wednesday amid worldwide condemnation of China's crackdown in Tibet and its human rights record ahead of the summer games in Beijing.

Several hundred police officers are expected to line the streets for the appearance of the torch, which has been trailed by protesters since it was lit in Greece a week ago at the start of a 85,000-mile, 21-country journey.

A San Francisco Police Department spokesman said security for the relay would be noticeably tighter than previous appearances of the torch in the city in 1992 and 1996.

"I can confirm that we are taking additional and different security measures to those that we have used in for past torch runs in San Francisco," Sergeant Neville Gittens told AFP.

Although he would not reveal the numbers of police to be deployed on Wednesday, Gittens added: "We are going to have a lot more than in the past because of all the events surrounding the torch."

British police made 30 arrests as they battled to keep pro-Tibet protesters away from the Olympic flame as it stopped off in London.

There were continual scuffles along the route as members of the relay team of renowned British athletes, pop stars and television personalities handed over the flame to the next runner.

In San Francisco meanwhile, around 200 rights activists warmed up for Wednesday's event by holding their own "human rights torch relay."
"Our message is that the Olympic torch and crimes against humanity cannot co-exist," organizer Steve Ispas told AFP prior to the event.

Anxiety about possible protests on Wednesday has already resulted in the torch's route through San Francisco, where around one third of the population is Asian, being drastically altered.

Initially the flame was expected to include stops on the city's iconic Golden Gate Bridge and a trademark cable car before it was reduced to a six-mile (9.6 km) loop along the waterfront.

A proposed stop in Chinatown was also cancelled, with officials citing safety concerns given the congested neighborhood's busy, narrow streets.

Anger over China's actions in Tibet and the jailing on Thursday of dissident Hu Jia have been building in San Francisco, where the city's political leadership passed a symbolic resolution last week to greet the Olympic torch with "alarm and protest."

Protests are also expected by activists from the Falun Gong spiritual movement as well as critics of China's positions on Taiwan, Sudan and Myanmar.

A billboard along a main highway to San Francisco bears a freshly posted message: "Stand up for Tibet, say 'No' to China's bloody torch."

Committee of 100 (C100) for Tibet, the group behind the billboard, is using the Internet to rally people nationwide to join in a "Tibetans Freedom Torch" relay and march in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and actor Richard Gere are to attend the pro-Tibet demonstration, during which a "freedom torch" that has shadowed the Olympic torch will be carried to the Chinese consulate here.

A candlelight vigil will be held on the eve of the Olympic torch's visit and C100 has a permit to demonstrate along the torch run route.

Officials at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco are downplaying the protests, saying that most of the Chinese community is proud Beijing is hosting the games.

"The Olympics are a major event for people worldwide and an important platform for peoples to enhance friendship, exchanges and cooperation," Chinese consulate spokesperson Jiang Yu said at a press conference.

"Disrupting and undermining the torch relay which belongs to the people worldwide is a flagrant provocation of the Olympic spirit and charter and a brazen challenge to the people around the world."

San Francisco Chinese community leader Rose Pak has publically questioned whether countries castigating China's human rights records have the moral authority to do so and says Chinese-Americans proudly welcome the torch.

Lobbying from Tibet supporters worried China's plans for a torch run in Tibet will spark violence have convinced San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom to share their concerns with visiting members of the Olympic committee.

Copyright AFP 2008