Word: tibet
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...time when swimmers and runners could distract the world from the nation's much-criticized human rights record, and when athletic competition could supersede geopolitical tension for a few short weeks. Instead, in the weeks leading up to the Games Chinese organizers decided to censor websites about Tibet, Falun Gong, and other politically sensitive groups to the foreign media, causing the predictable outcry from international press and human right groups. (Officials have since backed down and opened up the sites). Now comes word that China has banned Cheek to enter the country on the eve of the Games, revoking...
...extended down to the village level, says Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch. Bequelin, who wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the separatist movement in Xinjiang, says the latest attack underscores the "complete failure" of China's heavy-handed policies in both Xinjiang and Tibet. "We have to watch the government's reaction carefully," says Bequelin. "They shouldn't use this as an excuse to become even more oppressive. If people don't have the space to express the grievances they will be driven to support more extreme means of demonstrating their discontent...
...although access was restored to some long-blocked websites maintained by human-rights groups and news organizations, others - those advocating independence for Tibet or dealing with the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong - remained off-limits. It was also not clear how far the relaxation of Internet control extended within China, and skeptics doubted it would persist beyond the Games. "Everyone knows that the minute the circus is over, the walls will be put straight up again," says Russell Leigh Moses, a China scholar based in Beijing...
...take on China, given its history of cold war demonization and Charlie Chan caricatures. But the news media covering the Olympics don't have the luxury of ignoring it. Broadcasters have found their access restricted by China, which promised freedom to get the Games but is under scrutiny over Tibet, Darfur and internal human rights. Beijing is keeping Tiananmen Square, site of 1989's democracy protests, off limits to live TV for 18 hours...
...overseas activists are likely to try regardless. Canadian Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Student for a Free Tibet, was arrested last August as she tried to make her way to a countdown event in Tiananmen Square. Tethong, who had been blogging in China about the status of Tibetans, was expelled from the country along with six foreign activists who hung a banner that read, "One World, One Dream; Free Tibet 2008" on the Great Wall. She says Tibetan activists will try again to conduct public protests during the Games. "For us it's a historic moment," she says...