(Paris) - President Nicolas Sarkozy and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë should use the occasion of the Olympic Torch’s passage through Paris on Monday, April 7, to highlight ongoing abuses in China linked to the Beijing Games, Human Rights Watch said today.
On March 25, French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested that he might reconsider attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games, in response to the Chinese government’s harsh crackdown on protests in Tibet in recent weeks. On April 2, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced that City Hall will display a banner supporting human rights when the Olympic torch relay passes through the French capital because, “Paris defends human rights all over the world.” A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman responded by urging French politicians to “respect the Olympic spirit, take a responsible attitude and refrain from instigating disturbances to the Olympic torch relay at the violation of the people’s wishes.”
“President Sarkozy and Mayor Delanoë should use the occasion of the Olympic Torch’s passage in Paris to publicly condemn Olympic-related human rights issues in China,” said Jean-Marie Fardeau, Human Rights Watch’s Paris director. “Now is the moment to demonstrate how France upholds its legacy as the author of human rights.”
Over the past year, Human Rights Watch has documented numerous human rights abuses in China related to its hosting of the 2008 Summer Games, including media and internet censorship, extrajudicial house arrests, repression of civil society, abuses of migrant construction workers in Beijing, forced evictions, and the ongoing crackdown on protests in Tibet. Last week, leading human rights advocate Hu Jia was given a three-and-a-half-year sentence for criticizing the Chinese government in the context of the Games. Previously, Yang Chunlin received a five-year sentence for having begun a petition entitled, “We want human rights, not the Olympics.”
Human Rights Watch has called for the Olympic torch not to go through the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, as scheduled on June 20-21 unless the Chinese government agrees to an independent investigation into its repression of protests there. Human Rights Watch has also urged heads of government who have been invited to the opening or closing ceremonies of the Games to condition their attendance on human rights improvements in China.
