The European Parliament (EP) said it opposes China’s bid to host the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, citing its “disastrous record on human rights”.
The parliament said, “China’s disastrous record on human rights makes Beijing an unsuitable venue for the 2008 Olympic Games. The parliament’s resolution has a largely symbolic value and is not binding on governments in the 15 EU nations or other EU institutions.
“This black mark, as well as the repression of the people of Tibet, Ouigouristan and southern Mongolia makes China’s bid to organize the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing inappropriate”, the EP said in a statement after the fully-attended session.
Members of the EP have called upon the IOC to re-examine China’s bid file, which they say was presented while the Chinese authorities “radically modified their human and civil rights policies, and had promoted democracy and equal status”.
The EU assembly said it regretted that China “demonstrably fails” to live up to international human rights standards and called for the International Olympic Committee to “reconsider Beijing’s candidacy” only when China has made “fundamental changes” in their human rights policiies.
And in a resolution passed without a vote, the 626-member European Union assembly meeting in Strasbourg, France, said the Beijing bid was “inappropriate”.
Meanwhile, in New Delhi, India, several hundred Tibetan activists marched to urge Olympic organizers to reject China’s 2008 bid.
Tibetan Youth Congress spokesman Tenzin Samphel, said human rights violations in China have reached the point that “it must not be allowed to polish its image by hosting the Olympic Games”.
The demonstrators wore T-shirts saying “no Olympics in China”.
Samphel said exiled Tibetans and other human rights activists will converge on Moscow to stage a peaceful anti-China demonstration there.
However in a speech to Harvard University alumni, Taiwan’s vice president Annette Lu, one of Taiwan’s harshest critics of China for being a repressive, undemocratic bully that enjoys threatening Taiwan, endorsed China’s Olympic bid.
She said, “sincerely, we wish and hope that China would have the honour to earn the auspicious Olympic Games in 2008 and we will share with their victory”.
