Torch Relay Chaos (1 Viewer)

[Zrap]

PROTESTERS made good on promises to spectacularly interrupt the Beijing Olympics torch relay through Paris last night, with the flame twice extinguished, according to wire reports, after it was taken out of the way of demonstrators.
It was the second embarrassment in as many days for China, after clashes in London on Sunday in which demonstrators against China's crackdown in Tibet turned the torch relay into an ugly and chaotic farce.
Organisers, including Chinese officials, discussed "pulling out" of the day-long London relay after just a few hours, as police fought running battles with wave after wave of anti-China protesters.
China denounced the London protests as "vile behaviour", while the International Olympic Committee president, Jacques Rogge, insisted there was no momentum for a Games boycott.
In Paris yesterday, security officials extinguished the Olympic flame after police in jogging gear brought it aboard a bus to move it away from protesters, Associated Press said.
About 3000 police - on motorcycles, in jogging gear and on roller blades - oversaw the relay as it departed the Eiffel Tower and crisscrossed Paris.
The French media rights group Reporters Without Borders, which disrupted the lighting of the flame in Athens, hung a black banner condemning China's human rights record from the Eiffel tower.
A member of the French Greens party had earlier been restrained by police when trying to grab the torch from the first of 80 torch-bearers, the former world 400 metres hurdles champion Stephane Diagana.
Escorted by security, Diagana was wearing a badge reading "For a better world", an initiative decided by the athletes' commission of the French Olympic committee.
As the relay started, hundreds of demonstrators waving banners gathered on the Trocadero esplanade, on the other side of the river Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
The flame arrived in France yesterday after the London stop, where police battled to keep pro-Tibet protesters away from the torch and made 37 arrests.
The head of Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, denounced the security arrangements. "All that is missing is an appeal to Parisians to stay at home along the lines established in Beijing, where only officials welcomed the Olympic torch on a Tiananmen Square emptied of passers-by," he said in a statement.
The flame's Paris leg comes days after the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, became the first European leader to raise the possibility of not attending the opening ceremony in Beijing on August 8. "Our Chinese friends must understand the worldwide concern that there is about the question of Tibet, and I will adapt my response to the evolutions in the situation that will come, I hope, as rapidly as possible," Mr Sarkozy said last month. Asked about a boycott, he said he did "not close the door to any possibility".
France's Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, insisted yesterday that no conditions had been set for Mr Sarkozy's attendance but repeated that all options were still on the table.
The protests highlight Europe's growing unease with supporting the Olympics in the face of the Chinese authorities' brutal crackdown in Tibet last month and its harsh criticism of the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama. Critics also cite China's record of stifling general dissent..
Officials and politicians in Germany, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Poland are in favour of skipping the opening ceremony.
* China yesterday tried to discredit claims that security forces killed protesters in the recent unrest, saying a list of 40 supposedly dead people was "totally fake".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/protests-spark-torch-relay-chaos/2008/04/07/1207420302060.html

Would really hate to be a torch carrier this year.
Sif you wouldn't punch one of them in the head for trying to ruin your fun.

 

[Zrap]

Rumour: A conspiracy by the US CIA paying people to protest to make
China look like the bad guy and US the good guys. Did something similar to this during the Moscow Olympic.
Word on the street yo.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

lol @ China. Mebbe now they take note? Yes I doubt it too.

EDIT: lol @ Kevan Gosper too.

"They just take their hate out on whatever the issues are at the time, and that hate against the host country is being taken out on our torch,"

http://www.smh.com.au/news/beijing2...ith-hate-gosper/2008/04/08/1207420368388.html

 

[Gay Captain]

Rumour: A conspiracy by the US CIA paying people to protest to make
China look like the bad guy and US the good guys. Did something similar to this during the Moscow Olympic.
Word on the street yo.

Your chinese aren't you?

NO ONE CAN HATE GREAT MOTHERLAND CHINA
IS INVENTION BY RACIST WESTERN MEDIA

 

[Dongle]

Your chinese aren't you?

NO ONE CAN HATE GREAT MOTHERLAND CHINA
IS INVENTION BY RACIST WESTERN MEDIA

Of course, both Western and Chinese viewpoints are skewed to favour one's own political interests, and moral ego. But your attempt to misrepresent Chinese viewpoints as totally brainwashed isn't very fair. The moral high ground is something the pretentious Western Media thinks it has, but seriously, everything is distorted by sensationalism these days, so you have to take everything you see and hear with a grain of salt.

 

[chicky_pie]

Who's going to Canberra to protest when the torch comes?


STOP MADE IN CHINA PRODUCTS COMING INTO OUR SHORES!!


....and free Tibet.

 

[Dongle]

Who's going to Canberra to protest when the torch comes?


STOP MADE IN CHINA PRODUCTS COMING INTO OUR SHORES!!


....and free Tibet.

Let's see you try. No matter how unpopular China gets, it doesn't need to hold itself to the same self-righteous moral posture of the West. The economy and trade has too much momentum for individuals like you to do any real damage through boycotts. Hahaha, you can't do anything, the greater capitalistic good rules our world, I'm afraid....

 

[Iron]

Ill be there on the 24th. Although i'm generally as meek as a lamb, I somehow wont be surprised if I suffer the unfortunate and unusual fate of this poor fellow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bVa6jn4rpE&feature=RecentlyWatched&page=1&t=t&f=b

 

[michael1990]

All this talk about it should not come to Australia.

OF COURSE IT SHOULD COME!!!

Its a symbol of the Olympics and has been a symbol for many years.

Let them protest then let the 'APEC' police at the protestors.

 

[incentivation]

Surely there are more effective avenues that the protesters could pursue.

Disrupting any aspect of the Olympic Games will not rouse any support from those who are not already attached to the cause..

As a clear outsider, I know little about the quest for Tibetan independence . Perhaps the proponents of their cause should more effectively articulate their issues and reasoning for protest. Hindering the torch run does little more than create feelings of annoyance in those who hold the event in any form esteem..

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

I think they're looking more towards awareness than rousing support, and to that degree, I think they've succeeded dramatically.

 

[incentivation]

Whether or not its furthered their cause is a bit more ambiguous..

 

[ObjectsInSpace]

I think they're looking more towards awareness than rousing support, and to that degree, I think they've succeeded dramatically.

It's obvious they're not trying to extingush it given the attempts we've seen so far that don't even come across as half-arsed.

First of all, the Olympic Torch is gas-powered. Throwing water at it or hitting it with a fire extinguisher will do nothing unless you can convince the person to stand still long enough for it to be effective. And even if you do manage to put it out by some miracle, the officials are carrying a backup flame at all times. Probably more than one. Ever notice how there's a vehcile close at hand all the time? That's where the second flame is. If you put it out, they're just going to light it again.

Extguishing the Olympic Flame will do about as much as a worldwide boycott: nothing. A more effective way of getting the message to China would be a sponsor boycott. While China would still host the Games, they'd only be getting a fraction of the money and the Olympic Spirit - whatever that is - is maintained.

But no, some idiots think that if they put the flame out while it's on the other side of the world, then the nation with the world's largest air force is going to withdraw from Tibet. A more moronic notion I am yet to hear.

 

[Zrap]

All this talk about it should not come to Australia.

OF COURSE IT SHOULD COME!!!

Its a symbol of the Olympics and has been a symbol for many years.

Let them protest then let the 'APEC' police at the protestors.

Um, the APEC police. Good job they did, couldn't even keep
The Chasers out hahaha.

 

[michael1990]

Um, the APEC police. Good job they did, couldn't even keep
The Chasers out hahaha.

HA HA HA

i forgot about that!

they were still hard arsed coppers.

 

[Zrap]

really the only thing that was hard, was the fence near them.

 

[Slidey]

I'm split about boycotting the Olympics. I think it might end up being a strong tool for raising mainstream awareness of human rights issues in China.

 

[Dumsum]

Douse the protestors in a highly flammable liquid. You figure out the rest.

(I don't support protesting as a means of getting a point across, even if it's for something I support)

 

[_dhj_]

I'm split about boycotting the Olympics. I think it might end up being a strong tool for raising mainstream awareness of human rights issues in China.

No. A boycott would unite Chinese against the evil western media that deprived them of the Olympics. Any optimistic belief in the West as the proponent of liberty, fairness or progress would be shattered. They would be willing to forgo more freedoms and back their government in a new Cold War.

 

[michael1990]

(I don't support protesting as a means of getting a point across, even if it's for something I support)

Agreed, there are better avenues to use. Rather than all these people screaming and yelling and running around causing chaos.