During the the 1980 Olympic Games which were held in Moscow, the USA boycotted the games because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Olympic Committee decided to award the games to Bejing in spite of the growing world opinion against the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Currently in Tibet torture is a common practise. Forced sterilisations of women who cannot pay fines imposed for having more than one child, are a common occurrence. The procedure is primitive and the “patient” has to pay for any medical needs the day after the procedure. Women are some times left severely disabled by this barbaric practise.

Thousands of Tibetan people have been imprisoned in forced labour camps. Many have died in what has been described as systematic process of genocide.

The freedoms of the Tibetan people, both cultural and religious, have been severely curtailed. Still they remain constant to what the Dalai Lama calls “ The middle way” in the hope that reason might prevail through peaceful negotiation and intervention by the larger world community. Sadly this has not been forthcoming so far.
I expect and hope the recent problems around the Olympic torch parades is only the beginning of a growing world wide movement against Chinese human rights violation both at home and abroad.