The Chinese Saga of Olympic Shame Continues...... One Year Out From
Olympics, A Test of Openness in Beijing/Washington Post

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One Year Out From Olympics, A Test of Openness in Beijing

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A01

BEIJING, Aug. 7 -- China's Olympic organizers said Monday that they will
not allow the 2008 Beijing Games to be turned into a sounding board for
foreigners with a political agenda. But even as they spoke, foreign
demonstrators demanded the release of political prisoners and unfurled a
banner depicting the five Olympic rings as handcuffs.

The protest, staged by the international press freedom advocacy group
Reporters Without Borders, was a rare open expression of anti-government
sentiment in the heart of the capital. Although it involved only a
handful of people, it dramatized official concerns here that protests
could cast a pall over what the country's political leaders intend to be
a joyful coming-out party for modern China and its Communist Party
government.