US News
Gere and Tutu lead protests as San Francisco braces for Olympic torch
Apr 9, 2008, 8:37 GMT
Close up of part of a crowds of hundreds of protesters who gathered in the United Nations Plaze in San Francisco late 8 April 2008 on the eve of the controversial relay of the Beijing Olympic torch in the city EPA/ARLEEN NG
San Francisco - Actor Richard Gere and Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu led peaceful protests in San Francisco Tuesday night as the city braced for the controversial passage of the Olympic torch Wednesday.
Earlier, other demonstrators lit what they called the Tibetan Freedom Torch, police called in reinforcements and officials planned to change the torch's route to prevent a repeat of the mayhem caused by protestors in London and Paris.
An estimated 100,000 people were expected to line the route. Most protests groups have pledged not to disrupt the torch relay, but to use the globally televised even to draw attention to China's alleged human rights abuses.
The tone for the protests was set Monday when three activists climbed the suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl banners in support of Tibet.
'It is fantastic what people have been doing,' Tutu told reporters at the Candle Lights for Human Rights vigil at the city's United Nations Plaza.
City Supervisor Chris Daley lit the Tibetan Freedom Torch, calling on citizens to greet the Olympic torch 'in a nonviolent yet most militant way.' Other officials at the demonstration called on protestors not to disrupt the Olympic torch relay.
The Olympic torch arrived in San Francisco early Tuesday with hundreds of police officers on hand to protect the torch, and the pre-dawn arrival at the airport minimized protests. The procession Wednesday afternoon through the Pacific Coast city is the torch's only stop in the US on its strife-ridden journey around the globe ahead of the 2008 Beijing Games in August.
In New York the United Nations special advisor on sport warned that the effect of continued demonstrations could be devastating to the image of the Olympics and said he would travel to China to try and reduce tensions.
'My wish is to de-escalate the conflict,' Willi Lemke, a former Bundesliga football manager, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. 'If these pictures (of the torch relay) continue to go round the world until August, nobody will be happy about the Olympic Games, and that would be devastating.'
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Older Talkback
page: 1
When some people claimed that 1.2M Tibetans were killed, I have to tell them, yes, 1.2M died, but they were not men or women though, they were semen; when some people thought Tibet was an independent country, then I have to tell them, maybe it was, but that was before the concept of a country was born; when some people believed that the criminals who burned the innocent girls to death and beat civilians to death only wanted their voices to be heard, I have to tell them, yes, their voices were heard, but won't be anymore.
is either a retard or she's been way too long with her Absolute. The post makes ABSOLUTELY no sense.
Soon this so called news would be proven wrong, along with many crazy numbers thrown around unchecked by the media such as 1.3 mil death(G, I wonder where the current tibetan come from...the graves in 1949 the total tibtan population is between 1.5 and 2 mil), 140 death in recent violent protest (G, the FT pips must have an agency just devoted to counting death, I wonder if they count the innocent han people killed)
Here is a real number for you morons the tibetan popu has its sharpest increase during the PRC era (Roc also had sovereignty over tibet, so is the Qing, somewhat the ming, definietly the yuan). The population tripled to 5 mil. most lived with privelege and better welfare than han people. There is no reservation in tibet, because most lived where they used. There is no massive relocation of popul as in USSR (chechenya, jews, and kasack pop). If the cn gov is as ruthless as they had propagated, then i am pretty sure the tibetan would become the likes of native americans, ainus, shans, siberians, aborigines where the population received a 90 percent decrease.
Over the last 60 years over 1.2 million Tibetans have been massacred in cold blood by the Chinese military. Why has the world remained silent? Why?
China's human rights abuses are 'staggering': the detention of hundreds of thousands of people, including political activists, for 'reeducation' programs, and forced labor camps; and the liberal use of the death penalty in China -- including for political prisoners -- which makes China the site of 8 of every 10 government administered executions carried out in the world!
It is clear that the Communists can't be trusted at all and they have a bag full of tricks to fool not only Tibetans but the people of China with a state-controlled press. The solution is a free Tibet. There is no doubt that a sovereign Tibet would be a savior state not only for Tibetans but for all ethnic groups of China who have nowhere to go if they disagree with the CCP. A free Tibet would be such a free democratic heaven and haven.
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FunnyApr 9th, 2008 - 13:30:57
no 'americans' (aka, citizens of the US for Oil) commenting here???!!!! Ah yeah, they are all fuming because Absolute Vodka put California and Texas back inside Mexico borders!
WAR!
WAR to Sweden and to Mexico! Go cowboys, desktop soldiers, go attack Sweden and Mexico.
In the mean time, who cares about Tibet, no Oil, no care. How typical. Imbeciles and ignorants
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