Protests in Tibet

Nick-H

The Onion reaches new hights of biting satire --- or plumbs new depths of bad taste, I'm not sure which ---

Olympic Torch Used To Ignite Tibetan Protesters

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machadinha

That, er, hits to the bone Nick

Nice little poster (or in .pdf). The makers specify they were addressing the overall situation in China btw, not just (or not even specifically) Tibet:

Attached Thumbnails

 

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Madhu10

The Gavin Newson (major of San Francisco), along with Police chief Wong decided to reroute the Olympic flame relay in the only North American city yesterday in San Francisco. In the end hundreds who gathered from both sides...did not get to see the flame. There was a huge contingent of Free Tibet protestors, some for Free Burma and many asking for china to stop the genocide in Darfur.

The protestors felt a victory in that the flame did not complete its said route. Many were dissapointed that they did not get to see the flame. even the closing ceremony was held in a quite ceremony at the "airport" gate 94 at SFO.

I was there for about 4-5 hours, there was no voilence here yesterday, a few heated arguments did occur in the area where protestors were gathered along with pro china demostrators.

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Nick-H

Couldn't make out the detail in your pic, Mach, until I clicked on it.

Brilliant.

In a horrible, true sort of way.

dzibead

Madhu, I was there, too - just where you were taking pictures, down on the Embarcadero. I probably saw you and didn't realize it.

(Your Flickr site is great!)

Dilliwala

They've even managed to infiltrate the SFPD?!!

capt_mahajan

They will be on NYPD Blue next

Sama

one opinion about San Francisco and the torch run....how San Francisco = Beijing

http://www.alternet.org/story/82001/

"...as the charade developed into an ugly display of first amendment violations and thuggish police tactics, and everything the City of San Francisco stands for was trampled on. People's Armed Police -- the same force implicated in the shootings of unarmed Tibetans on the Tibet-Nepal border -- roamed freely through the streets. Tibetans with flags were forced to vacate public gathering spaces while Chinese nationals were allowed to remain. A phalanx of riot cops -- five deep -- guarded the torch at every step, shoving protesters out of the way.

For a city like San Francisco, with a colorful history of free speech and protest, this was a disgrace."

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Nick-H

I forget which one, but the bridge banner was in one of our papers here yesterday.

China certainly isn't winning the PR war, eh?

dzibead

Actually, it's Chief Fong ... and she's a woman (Heather Fong).

dzibead

Well, I was there with a Tibetan flag, too, and I never saw this kind of thing happening. I walked around anywhere I liked and nobody - no cops, no China-supporters - did anything to me. I did hear about one incident where a woman with a Free Tibet sign who was sitting in the front row of the area where the boring stage performances were going on was asked by some cops to leave because her sign might be taken as "inflammatory" in that particular area ... but it turned out these cops were acting outside their authority, as there were no restrictions confining certain protesters to certain areas and barring them from others.

The whole thing was a farce though, and Newsome just wimped out by using the ploy of the secret route. Laughable, but unfortunately it allows the Chinese to put a favorable spin on the SF torch run, at least in the media back in China (which they'd try to do regardless - they have no compunction about lying).

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the protesters won by forcing the torch into hiding. Doesn't it tell you something about public opinion toward China - and towards their own use of the Olympics for political propaganda while whining about how others are "injecting" politics into the event -- when they can't openly display the torch? The protesters weren't thwarted just because the torch didn't physically pass in front of their eyes. There was still a tremendous show of opposition along the original torch route and one of the actual torch bearers (a black woman from the South Bronx who's an environmental activist) even whipped out a Tibetan flag when she was handed the torch! She had the torch snatched away from her and was unceremoniously shoved back into the crowd. I don't think that was captured in photos - too bad - what great protest PR that would have been - but the incident was written up in the papers. She later came to the area where the Tibetan protesters were gathered and, as you can imagine, received a hero's welcome.

Dilliwala

Ok - I'm sure her gender's not relevant though!

I agree, and same for London and Paris. And I reckon Delhi's not doing too bad, since the route has already been drastically curtailed.
Now if only the GOI wud announce next week that they have to call the whole thing off for security reasons.......<wishful/wistful>


I reckon if PR wars wud decide the survival of nations, by August the PRC will be near collapse.

dzibead

But we're so diverse in SF! (What's the name of that famous Indian woman cop? the one who was a big-shot? chief of police in Delhi or something?) By the way, the Fire Chief in SF is also a woman. We're taking over, guys ...

OK, back on-topic ...

I just heard that Japan will not allow the Chinese security guards (the thugs in the blue track suits you can see in all the torch photos) to accompany the torch on the relay when it's there. They said only Japanese police will be allowed to provide security. I was surprised when I first heard about these Chinese security guys being allowed to do crowd-control - I don't think any other country should have allowed that! Good for Japan!

Dilliwala

Kiran Bedi........and she's running!

Defended her decision on TV last Sunday too. But like a good (ex-)cop, she said the protesters shud not be banned from the route either!
EDIT:
After our govt's spinelessness over the last few weeks (and decades), what was heartening was that most of the participants (it was a weekly talk show) seemed to be supporting the Tibetans. Clearly displaying that there's a disconnect between the citizens and the people (not for the first time).

Yeah, I was really surprised to see them, both in London and SF. Now that they've collected enough bad press, hope the GOI take their cue from Japan.

Sama

that's not my quote, dzibead, that's from alternet...

here are some more opinions about the Olympics, the boycotts, and politics, blah blah blah.....

The Reality Based Community

Pickled Politics

World Socialist Website

citizensugar


I must say that after watching a YouTube video of the torch relay in SF, the SF police reminded me of the cops at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago -- storm troopers ready to do some head bashing.