{"id":3471233,"date":"2008-08-08T02:56:32","date_gmt":"2008-08-07T18:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/?p=3471233"},"modified":"2023-04-13T05:16:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T05:16:29","slug":"nazanin-china-olympics-a-blessing-in-disguise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/2008\/08\/08\/nazanin-china-olympics-a-blessing-in-disguise\/","title":{"rendered":"Nazanin: “China Olympics, a blessing in disguise”"},"content":{"rendered":"
” journalists are finally seeing just how restrictive the satellites are… “
<\/strong>
\nEpoch Times<\/a><\/strong>
\nOTTAWA\u2014On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler released a report that highly criticizes China\u2019s ongoing human rights abuses despite promising to make improvements when awarded the Games in 2001.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are witnessing today in China is a persistent and pervasive assault on human rights \u2014 a betrayal of the Olympic Charter, the modern Olympic movement, and China\u2019s pledge to respect both,\u201d said Mr. Cotler at a press conference on Parliament Hill.<\/p>\n

The report identifies 11 key areas of human rights violations by the Chinese regime. They include Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and other persecuted groups; the crackdown on press freedom; mistreatment of prisoners; the death penalty; and complicity in genocide and rights abuses in countries such as Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma, and Nepal.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina undertook, in their words, to respect human rights, to respect media freedom, and then they added, \u2018we will translate these words into deeds,\u2019\u201d Mr. Cotler said at an interview following the press conference. \u201cYet seven years later, the deeds mock the words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Cotler urged foreign governments to \u201cspeak up and speak out\u201d and in particular asked world leaders attending the Beijing Olympics to call publicly for the release of political prisoners.<\/p>\n

His report includes names of specific prisoners and makes recommendations with respect to each category.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n\u201cIt concludes both with the need to hold China to account to end the culture of impunity, and to secure the promises that China originally gave that it would have press freedom and advance the cause of human rights,\u201d said Mr. Cotler<\/p>\n

At the press conference he was accompanied by former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour, international human rights activist and Miss World Canada 2003 Nazanin Afshin-Jam, and Beryl Wajsman, president of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal.<\/p>\n

Mr. Cotler is a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and currently the Official Opposition Human Rights Critic. He noted that \u201cthere is an inter-relationship between trade and human rights and we cannot proceed in terms of business as usual.\u201d  Mr. Cotler added that \u201cwe can\u2019t just be sending trade missions \u2014 we should be sending human rights missions to China as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the press conference the speakers joined a demonstration at the Chinese embassy that drew over 250 people, including representatives from Reporters without Borders and the Uyghur, Dafrurian, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Burmese, and Falun Gong communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been close to my heart to try to help all the oppressed in the world,\u201d said Ms. Afshin-Jam, whose idea it was to hold the event. \u201cWe decided to organize an event here in our capital to show Canadian people\u2019s solidarity for the people of China. Simultaneously around the world other groups are gathering at various Chinese embassies and other meeting points.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This event shows the government of China that \u201cunlike other protests this is a protest that is bringing diverse groups together to speak with one single voice,\u201d said Dermod Travis, CTC\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n

Ms. Afshin-Jam said she is seeing the Olympics as a \u201cblessing in disguise. \u201cOur journalists are finally seeing just how restrictive the satellites are… This will get our journalists to spread the message and put more pressure on the Chinese government to make change.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pamela McLennan of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong noted that her organization has provided a journalists\u2019 guide to forced labour camps near Olympic venues where thousands of Falun Gong adherents are incarcerated for their belief. She encouraged international journalists attending the games to investigate human rights abuses in China. <\/p>\n

( SCE: Nazanin invited Chinese Ambassador Lu Shumin to speak to the crowd. There was no response.<\/em> “I didn’t expect anyone from the embassy to come out,” said Nazanin Afshin-Jam )<\/em><\/strong> \n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

” journalists are finally seeing just how restrictive the satellites are… “
<\/strong>
\nEpoch Times<\/a><\/strong>
\nOTTAWA\u2014On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler released a report that highly criticizes China\u2019s ongoing human rights abuses despite promising to make improvements when awarded the Games in 2001.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are witnessing today in China is a persistent and pervasive assault on human rights \u2014 a betrayal of the Olympic Charter, the modern Olympic movement, and China\u2019s pledge to respect both,\u201d said Mr. Cotler at a press conference on Parliament Hill.<\/p>\n

The report identifies 11 key areas of human rights violations by the Chinese regime. They include Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and other persecuted groups; the crackdown on press freedom; mistreatment of prisoners; the death penalty; and complicity in genocide and rights abuses in countries such as Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma, and Nepal.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina undertook, in their words, to respect human rights, to respect media freedom, and then they added, \u2018we will translate these words into deeds,\u2019\u201d Mr. Cotler said at an interview following the press conference. \u201cYet seven years later, the deeds mock the words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Cotler urged foreign governments to \u201cspeak up and speak out\u201d and in particular asked world leaders attending the Beijing Olympics to call publicly for the release of political prisoners.<\/p>\n

His report includes names of specific prisoners and makes recommendations with respect to each category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3471233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5195815,"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471233\/revisions\/5195815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3471233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3471233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stopchildexecutions.com\/scenewsarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3471233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}