Tag Archives: China

SF Torch Relay Open Thread

Here’s a live feed of the events in San Francisco today, courtesy Students for a Free Tibet. Check it out over the flip.

If you’re on the parade route you’re not likely to see anything, because police officers will form a human shield around the torch carriers.  Which makes you wonder why they’re bothering to do this at all.  The CHP and the US Secret Service are on hand as well.

We’ll have more as it happens…

UPDATE: The House just passed a resolution supporting Tibet and calling on China to end their crackdown.

Students for a Free Tibet has plenty more.

Multiple Groups Coming Together for SF Olympic Torch Relay Protests

San Francisco authorities are justifiably nervous about providing a platform for Chinese propaganda at tomorrow’s Olympic torch relay.  The number and variety of protests are great and go beyond protesting the situation in Tibet.  The Falun Gong will call for religious freedom inside China.  Human Rights Watch seeks to call attention to China’s deplorable human rights record.  The San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition will be massing to call for China’s end to its material support for genocide in the Sudan (you can hear Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s talking about this here).  There are all sorts of reasons to be concerned for China’s ascension to this position of prestige by hosting the Olympics.  And recent events along the global parade route, particularly from the pro-Tibet activists, are having a real impact.

As thousands of pro-Tibet protesters cut short the Olympic torch relay Monday in Paris, a new Zogby Interactive poll finds 70% of likely voters believe the International Olympic Committee was wrong to award this year’s summer Olympic Games to China because of its poor record on human rights. Dissatisfaction with the IOC’s choice is strong across the political spectrum, with 70% of Democrats and Republicans, and 68% of political independents who said they disagree with the decision to have China host the summer games. A Zogby Interactive poll conducted in May 2007 found 44% had a favorable opinion of the IOC’s decision to award the 2008 Summer Olympic Games to China, while 39% viewed the decision unfavorably.

So San Francisco ought to be concerned with the scope and force of protests tomorrow.  They actually should acknowledge them by canceling the parade.  What does it achieve?  Will San Francisco cover themselves in glory tomorrow?  The protesters will show that the entire city is a free speech zone, and they will show the importance and power of activism.  But the city will just be giving a platform to the Chinese to sanitize their image and whitewash the deplorable spots in their record.  There’s no reason for this and the potential for some ugly outcomes is growing.  

Authorities in San Francisco, which on Wednesday will host the only North American leg of the relay, said they had closely watched events in London on Sunday and in Paris.

“We have a lot of concerns,” said Sgt. Neville Gittens, a San Francisco police spokesman. “I don’t want to identify them, but this is not a contained route security-wise, and there are lots of opportunities for trouble. We’re watching what’s going on very closely and will make changes to our plans as we figure them out.”

Mayor Gavin Newsom met with Chinese officials in San Francisco on Monday to review security measures, which include requiring all rank-and-file police officers to report to work Wednesday. Meanwhile, at least two neighboring police departments have been asked to provide reinforcements, the California Highway Patrol will be on hand and the FBI is on standby, officials said.

I’m not sanguine about the prospects of this relay tomorrow.  London and Paris were just a prelude.

MARCH ON THE TORCH!

(Chris Daly is the George Costanza of SF politics, but his wife kicks ass and I think of him as a friend. I’ll be posting pics of the protest on Calitics as fast ss I can. – promoted by Bob Brigham)

Join me for an historic rally and march on Beijing’s Olympic Torch in solidarity with the people of Tibet.

Wednesday, April 9th, 12 Noon, Embarcadero near Market

Nearly two months ago, representatives from the Tibetan community began working with my office on a resolution for the Board of Supervisors. Tibetans were rightfully concerned that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was using the Olympic Games in Beijing to gloss over their program of cultural genocide in Tibet. San Francisco would be the only stop in the US for the Torch Relay scheduled to make its way to Tibet this summer. On March 10th, Tibetan Uprising Day, I was set to introduce the resolution.

On the same day 300 brave monks set out from Drepung monastery outside of Lhasa on a protest march to Potala Palace in the heart of the city. The arrest of dozens of these monks led to further protests and uprising on the streets of Lhasa and other cities across Tibet. The Chinese government met these protests with a brutal crackdown, killing over 100 Tibetans and arresting hundreds of others in door-to-door raids.

This wicked turn of events in Tibet catapulted what would otherwise be a highly symbolic resolution into the national and international spotlight — drawing significant attention to San Francisco as we called out China’s abysmal human rights record – a laundry list of dirty abuses that extend from cultural genocide in Tibet to persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, from suppressing labor and environmental activists to stifling freedom of speech and press, and from militarily aiding genocide in Darfur to propping up a brutal dictatorship in Burma.

For months, Gavin Newsom had been working closely with top Chinese government officials on preparations for the torch event in San Francisco. For the PRC, the San Francisco leg of the relay had a unique importance due to our economic role in the Pacific Rim and for our significant Chinese population. For Gavin Newsom, the torch relay was a ready-made opportunity to elevate his national and international political stature.

But the veil of secrecy under which this planning took place became increasingly apparent as the Board’s resolution worked its way through the legislative process. Community groups and reporters alike were asking questions about the route and how protests would be handled. The answers were either not forthcoming (the route was not set) or the wrong ones (protests would be limited to “free speech zones”). Gavin Newsom also started to be asked about his position on human rights in China.

After the brutal crackdown in Tibet, it became increasingly difficult for Newsom to dodge these questions. One of Gavin’s political mentors, Nancy Pelosi, took a strong stance on the PRC’s crackdown, traveling to meet with the Dalai Lama in India.  She said, “If freedom loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world.” Pelosi’s actions challenged Newsom to act with conscience, but instead he opted for the same line used by George Bush — politics, including China’s crackdown in Tibet, should be kept separate from the Beijing Olympics.

But the notion that we can somehow separate politics from an international event on the scale of the Olympics is an impossible one, even if the Olympic Charter wasn’t dedicated to “promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” The Olympic Games have been necessarily intertwined with our politics and history. This was especially the case with ’36 Berlin Games, ’68 Mexico City Games, and the boycott games of ’80 and ’84. While the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta had little international controversy, the local politics in Atlanta were very loaded. To make way for the Olympic Village, the oldest public housing development in the country was demolished. Thousands of people lost their homes while new laws were enacted to target homeless people. Meanwhile, the

Fortunately, Newsom ultimately backed down from China’s requests of limiting protest, although you’d think the Mayor of San Francisco would know better. The entire City of San Francisco is and will always be a “free speech zone.” San Francisco is known across the globe for protest, one of free speech’s most critical elements; from the General Strike in 1934 to the hundreds of thousands that flooded San Francisco streets to protest the invasion of Iraq in 2003. So when the Board of Supervisors resolved that the Olympic Torch should be received with alarm and protest, we did so fully cognizant of the role of protest in our great City.

As the Olympic Torch approaches, it is critical that we acknowledge the situation in Tibet has reached a crisis point and appreciate the gravity of our opportunity to highlight the issue on behalf of those inside Tibet who are being brutally persecuted by the Chinese government for expressing their desire for freedom. We must build on the message that’s been delivered by people of conscience in Athens, London, and now Paris.

Our March on the Torch will continue the peoples’ story of justice — that this torch should not be allowed to go through Tibet. We will apply even more pressure on the International Olympic Committee to end their complicity in China’s brutal crackdown and send a clear signal to the PRC that they need to clean up their human rights record and end their brutality in Tibet at once.

The cause of international human rights is coming to San Francisco on Wednesday. Please march with us to accept this enormous responsibility.

For up to the minute updates please text SFTORCH to 41411.

Tibet Protestors Scale Golden Gate Bridge

First in London and now in Paris, pro-Tibet protesters are disrupting the Olympic torch relay, and in the case of Paris, they extinguished the flame on numerous occasions and eventually canceled the presentation.

The flame reaches San Francisco for its only American stop on Wednesday.  Hundreds of police officers are expected to cover the parade, and the route has been shifted and altered in an attempt to outflank the expected protesters.  In advance of this, 3 protesters have placed signs on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.  SFist has the story and is updating.

Update: (11:42): Nope, all three climbers are staying put. Those descending the suspension cables right now are just bridge workers. This will go on for a while.

KGO is reporting that seven people were arrested so far with regard to this protest.

Update (11:51 a.m.): More flags are being put up. The three protesters–one man, two women–still remain. Newcasters are desperate to know “how this could have happened?”

If you don’t have to go to the Golden Gate Bridge, don’t. It’s heavily congested. Obviously.

The situation is essentially that the International Olympic Committee currently has the most leverage over the Chinese government’s behavior in Tibet, and their human rights record generally.  And so these protests and potential boycotts, most recently discussed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, make more than a symbolic statement.  Hillary Clinton is calling on George Bush to follow suit (which is unlikely, because he digs sports).  Hold Fast Blog has a lot more.

Wednesday should be very interesting.  Our SF bloggers will hopefully weigh in.

Keeping Big Business happy at our children’s expense

This article written by: Former Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson of Speak Out california

I remember as a youngster believing that the President and the government would protect us from harmful things—like gas fumes at the pump and toys that broke off and could hurt babies and little children. Of course, I was quite young at the time, not yet at double digits, the country was much more naive and Dwight Eisenhower was president. This was obviously a long time ago!

But I took the notion seriously that government had a moral and constitutional responsibility to protect the public and keep us from harms way—whether it be from enemies to our shores, criminals threatening our personal peace and safety or just known bad things being cast upon us by those who didn’t care about our well-being.

It turns out I was very naive, and had a misplaced sense of what government, at least in times of Ike,considered to be its responsibilities. But as time has moved on, the role of government to protect us as consumers and as individuals has evolved. Particularly in the 1970’s, and somewhat ironically, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, the role of the EPA, the Consumer Protection Agency and other publicly concerned entities took a front-and-center position in helping protect our nation and our natural resources. After all, it was Richard Nixon who signed the Clean Water Act (although it was pushed heavily by the democratically controlled congress). To his credit, he also oversaw the first Environmental Protection Agency, committed to protecting our environmental health.

Fast-forward to today and we see a stark contrast between a national commitment to protect the public and an adminstration which has blatantly and shamelessly pronounced that the public health is of no concern to it. That seems to be the message of this week’s extraordinary conduct of one Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The CPSC is the agency tasked with the responsibility to oversee the safety of more than 15,000 types of consumer products. It is this agency which has been under scrutiny as more and more of the thousands of products we import from China, as toys with which our children play, turn out to be laced with poison. Primarily in the form of lead materials, our youngest children are being exposed to toxic materials known to cause brain damage and other serious health and safety consequences for children in particular.

The public outcry has been predictably severe, after all, these are our children who are being knowingly exposed to dangerous substances. The question has been raised, “Where is the government in all this? Where is the agency that is supposed to protect against unsafe consumer products? Who is minding the store?”

The answer with this administration, in particular, has been that no one is minding the store. After all, the market can regulate itself and we don’t want to impose any regulation or restrictions that will interfere with a free and unregulated market. And therein lies the rub: The market has not and does not regulate itself. It only responds when it is finally CAUGHT. So millions of our children have been exposed to these dangerous materials. How many of them will suffer as a result? How many parents and loved ones will feel responsible for the consequences because the government has failed to protect them? And finally, how can this administration, that professes to want to protect America justify such neglect of its responsibilities?

The answer, sadly, is best summarized by the extraordinary response by the person who is in charge of protecting us from unsafe products. Appointed by George W. Bush  to head an agency whose work and mandate she opposes, Ms. Nord publicly opposed legislation that will strengthen her agency’s ability to do its job.

On October 30th, the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved a bill which would raise the CPSC budget, increase its staff and grant it “broad new powers to police the marketplace” on behalf of consumer safety.
The New York Times reported that Nord opposed the measure because it would “increase the maximum penalties for safety violations , make it easier for the government to make public reports of faulty products and protect industry whistleblowers and prosecute executives of companies that willfully violate the law.” In other words, she opposed a bill that would help her agency do its job in holding these companies accountable and deterring these dangerous abuses in the future– this from the person responsible for making sure we are protected from these very practices. Just imagine a District Attorney opposing legislation making his/her job easier to catch and prosecute the bad guy!

This legislation was precipitated by yet another recall in October of over half a million toys imported from China. Earlier we saw millions of other toys recalled for containing dangerous levels of lead and other safety problems. As if that weren’t enough to jump on the bandwagon and call for greater oversight and accountability, Ms. Nord completely missed the point, arguing instead that the latest recall came not for safety reasons, but simply because the contents violate the law. Huh?

Have the Bush free-marketeers gone so over the top that they don’t see that the public wants protection and deserves to be protected from dangerous products, especially those that harm their CHILDREN? Apparently not. Apparently the free-marketeers are so inflexible, so intractible, so unconcerned with the well-being of the people they are poisoning that they are even willing to so publicly condemn efforts to assure greater safety and protection of our people, and our children in particular.

If there are any Americans left who think this administration cares about them more than about big business and corporate profit, this should be the final nail in that coffin. This move toward even greater deregulation, greater unaccountability and responsibility to the public is straight out of the failed conservative ideology that the people are reacting to today. Bush’s dangerous and irresponsible commitment to ignore the public’s safety, heavens, our children’s safety, for the sake of corporate free- market is yet another example of his failed priorities and the failure of this administration to act in the best interests of the public he and his appointees are supposed to serve.

For the sake of our children and our planet we must change the dialogue and bring safety and responsibility back to the process. Our children deserve it and we must demand it. When an administration is reduced to such arrogance and misguided values so as to blatantly and publicly reject the safety of its people and its children, in particular, it is time to send them packing.

It isn’t the 1950’s anymore. We aren’t naive about what is going on in the world and in the world of mulit-national commerce. And even our youngsters today know the government isn’t necessarily there to protect them. It is now our job to insist that it do so.

Joe Brown’s article : Should we reconsider the Beijing Float?

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