Don't forget to mention the Olympics, Ken

Rings, torch have ties to Hitler's Nazi propaganda The symbols

By William J. Kole The Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece - The most beloved emblems of the modern Olympics have a decidedly dark past.

The torch relay that culminates in the ceremonial lighting of the flame at Olympic stadium was ordered by Adolf Hitler, who tried to turn the 1936 Berlin Games into a celebration of the Third Reich.

And it was Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine that popularized the five interlocking rings as the symbol of the Games.

Flashback: Greece 2004: Olympics "clean-up" hits city's most vulnerable inhabitants

Feature, 08/06/2004 - Athens has worked hard to present visitors of the Olympic Games 2004, and the world's media, with its best face. People living in the city have been rewarded with new sports facilities, railways and road junctions after months of dusty work on buildings and roads. However, all this has come at a price in terms of human rights.

Official figures put the number of workers killed on construction sites at 14, but unofficial estimates put the figure at 40 workers dead due to poor safety measures. Union representatives say that no accurate official figures are being kept. Many of Greece's construction workers are from Eastern Europe and South Asia.

In the months leading up to the Games, Greece was heavily criticized for the poor organization and slow preparation. There were fears that key facilities would not be finished in time for the start. All this reflected on the workers, many of whom worked long hours in dangerous conditions without protective equipment or supervision.

Greece is obliged under international law to guarantee minimum labour standards including under the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The UN Human Rights Norms for Businesses set out a comprehensive list of the human rights obligations of companies, including the provision of safe and healthy working conditions.

As the building work draws to a close, the Athens authorities have put a lot of effort into cleaning up the streets. This has also meant the rounding up of homeless people from the centre of the city and sending some of them to psychiatric institutions.

"Following arrests by the police, the prosecutor issues sectioning orders that force us to lock up drug addicts, alcoholics or mentally ill people," said Michalis Yannakos, head of a trade union at Dromokaition Psychiatric Hospital.

The newly-imposed security measures also affect asylum-seekers or refugees. There are reports that the Greek authorities are asking them for particular documents that they may not be able to provide.

Robert White, the representative of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Greece, says that they expect the legitimate border controls and security measures, being undertaken by the Government in relation to the Olympic Games, to be balanced with the provisions of access to the territory and access to fair asylum procedures for those in genuine need of refugee protection, in accordance with established international obligations.

"Some local media reports mention roundups and detentions of persons, sometimes without proper screening to identify those who may be of concern to UNHCR. We are working with the Greek government to address these and broader issues related to improvements of the asylum system and the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees."

The Ministry of Public Order is alleged to have issued a memo in support of detaining asylum-seekers in a camp in Larissa for reasons of public order and security, a measure that will seriously undermine the asylum process.

In a report published in October 2003, the UNHCR criticized Greece over detention conditions under which asylum-seekers are held.

"Many people who eventually are registered as asylum-seekers are initially detained for a three-month period for reasons of illegal entry, at various locations in the country," Robert White of the UNHCR explains. "Detention conditions are quite variable -- in some cases improved as compared to one year ago (for example Chios and Lesvos), in other cases with improvements underway (e.g. the Evros area near the border with Turkey), in still other cases, substandard."

In the run up to the Olympic Games, inmates of Korydallos Prison and five other prisons have protested against the government's decision to stop authorizing parole during the games as a security measure. Amnesty International addressed the Greek government in July 2004 about the conditions of detention in high security facilities at Korydallos Prison. The organization had received information that the conditions of detention amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, including poor hygiene in cells; a lack of access to association, fresh air and exercise facilities; and a lack of prompt medical treatment.

The rights of a group of Romani families were abused after they signed an agreement with the mayor of the Athens suburb of Maroussi in 2002. Under the terms of the agreement, they would leave their homes in the vicinity of the Olympic Stadium construction site on the condition that they would receive subsidies to help them rent new accommodation. This was to be a temporary measure, as under the terms of the agreement, the Municipality of Maroussi also undertook to work towards their permanent rehousing.

The agreement, which affects a total of 137 people, guaranteed a monthly payment for each family with payments varying according to family size. By October 2002, they had already begun making complaints that they were not receiving payments or that the payments were erratic. Some families allege that they faced discrimination whilst looking for new accommodation and, when they did finally find a house to rent, they would lose it through lack of funds, caused by the non-punctual payment of the rent subsidies by the Maroussi Municipality.

On 8 June 2004, the Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance made public its Third Report on Greece, in which it criticized the Greek central administration and local authorities alike for not making all efforts necessary to improve the living conditions of Roma in Greece.

The European Commission has threatened to take legal action against five EU countries, Greece included, for being slow in bringing national laws in line with the bloc's rules against racial discrimination.

Greece has made an enormous effort to welcome athletes and visitors for the Olympic Games in renovated Athens. The country's authorities should match the Olympic principle of "fair play" in their treatment of the most vulnerable groups of its society. - amnesty.org

1936 Nazi Germany: 2008 Communist China. History repeats again.

NEW DELHI, July 20, 2001 -- The vote in Moscow was less a contest between Toronto, Paris and Beijing than a referendum on China's reputation in the world and on whether it's authoritarian regime could be nudged towards tolerance. Although ideally the Olympics might be outside the bubble of politics, China's bid is most certainly not.

The only hurdle for Chinese bid for the 2008 Olympics were Human rights condition in Mainland China as well as Chinese occupied Tibet. While in Moscow the members of International Olympic Committee (IOC) were sent thousands of postcards with the famous picture of a peaceful protestor standing against a tank in Tiananmen square, flyers showing a monk handcuffed with the Olympic rings, posters of the Olympic five-ring logo as five bullet holes, thousands of emails, faxes and calls. Students for a free Tibet were one of at least two dozen organizations opposed to China's bid. IOC members also heard from human rights, animal rights, women's right, Russia's transnational Radical Party, Reporters without borders, anti-abortion and environmental watchdog groups as well as the free China Forum, the International Association of Chinese workers, the overseas Chinese democracy coalition, the party for freedom and democracy in China, the Wei Jing Federation, the inner Mongolian people's party and the U.S.-Tibet Committee. But in the face of a persistent struggle and thunderous anti-China protests in Moscow and around the globe, Beijing won its bid by lobbying the IOC members with a woo-pee $20 million promotional campaign.

Police swept away migrants, beggars and others deemed insightfully off the streets and into detention centers just to impress the inspectors when they visited Beijing before the actual voting.

Since China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1949 more than 1.2 million Tibetans have died from famine, imprisonment, torture and execution. In Tibet at the moment, there isn't freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press, and Tibetans are facing the worst serious crackdown on their religious freedom in years. According to Amnesty international, a human rights watchdog group, regardless of their Olympic bid the Chinese authorities haven't yet stopped their crack down on Falun Gong spiritual movement. China executed at least 1,700 Falun Gong followers in the last three months, which is, in fact much more than the rest of the world put together in the last three years.

According to IOC there were two ways to deal with the problem. One would be to sanction China by not awarding the games and the other would be to bet on the Olympics improving China's Human rights. But the big question was why the IOC was looking at human rights AFTER the vote and not BEFORE it.

It is clear that when the international community does not particularly consider human rights in its relationship with China, prejudice and repression only increases.

During the Olympics the beach volleyball will be played on Tiananmen square, where hundreds of democracy devoted, peaceful students were once butchered. This will be a clear mock on their memorable sacrifices. Apart from that, international athletes wouldn't be so proud of competing on sport stadiums, which were the last places where many of those condemned to death were taken to be subjected to ritual public humiliation in front of huge crowds, just before being executed. Literally, the athletes will be awarded blood medals.

IOC members should be responsible enough to make sure that China doesn't uses the Olympic motto Citius-Altius-Fortius (faster-higher-stronger) on their Human rights abuses.

"The decision by the IOC goes towards justifying a repressive political system that each day flouts freedom and violates human rights," said Loncle, a member of French Prime Minister's socialist party after learning that Beijing had won the bid, "following the example of Nazi Germany in 1936 and the Soviet Union in 1980, Communist China will use (the games) as a powerful propaganda instrument destined to consolidate its hold on power", he added.

With the 2008 Olympics, Beijing gets the stamp of international approval on its human rights abuses and would also signify approval of its vicious authoritarian regime and its occupation of Tibet. A country that flagrantly violates International laws should not have been acknowledged with such an honor and distinction of being an Olympic host.

IOC members now stands responsible for Human rights violation in China and Chinese occupied Tibet for the next seven years or even further if the worlds most crowded nation doesn't plays by rule.

[Thupten N Chakrishar is a member of Students for a free Tibet. Thupten has won the US-based International Society of poets 'World Champion Amateur source - Thupten N Chakrishar