Friday column: Here's one event that wasn't televised

Monday in Beijing:

Angelo Taylor, 29, leads a U.S. sweep in the 400-meter hurdles. There is cheering.

Chinese star Liu Xiang, 25, withdraws from the 110-meter hurdles because of injury. There is weeping.

Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying, women in their late 70s, are sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor.” There is silence.

Wu and Wang made the mistake of believing their government when it said that its citizens would be allowed to protest during the Games if they followed an orderly process and applied for permits.

According to The New York Times, Wu and Wang made four trips to the police to attempt to get a permit to protest the price they were paid for homes, demolished to make way for a redevelopment project. On their fifth try, they were told they had been given administrative sentences for “disturbing the public order.”

Wang’s son told The Times his mother was nearly blind, and asked, “Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?”

Sounds like a good question for the Public Security Bureau, but when The Times called it, the man who picked up the phone declined to answer.

Silence — the official sound of repression and proud sponsor of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.

The Associated Press reported Monday that the authorities have received 77 applications to hold protests during the Olympics. Oddly, not one has been approved.
According to the country’s official news agency, all the applications were withdrawn, suspended or rejected. Weren’t the Games supposed to improve China’s stance on human rights?

Said the AP account: “Rights groups and relatives have said some applicants were immediately taken away by security agents after applying to hold a rally, prompting critics to accuse officials of using the plan as a trap to draw potential protesters to their attention.”

You think?

Defending the country’s “protest plan,” Wang Wei, an official of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, said, “Many problems have not been solved, not even by the United Nations, and some want them to be solved during the Olympic Games, putting pressure on the International Olympic Committee and the Beijing Olympic Committee.

“This is not realistic,” Wang continued. “We think that you do not really understand China’s reality. China has its own version and way of exercising our democracy.”

So we see.

When the XXIX Olympiad is over, gold-medal machine Michael Phelps will be the face of the Beijing Games, which certainly is fair — but not necessarily right. What would be right is if Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying also became the faces of the Games.

Of course, for that, we’d have to actually see their faces. You can — for the moment, thanks to an AP photograph. Take a good look. You won’t see them again for a good, long while.

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Those wanting to protest the sentencing can contact the Chinese Embassy in Washington at 2300 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20008, or by e-mail, webmaster@china-embassy.org


Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.