China's New Olympic Rules

Ahh, the Olympics: the traditions; the majesty; the competitive spirit; the graceful athleticism and the...the political restrictions?

That's right. China, not satisfied with infringing on their own citizens' rights to protest against the government, or cracking down on claims of independence of different areas, now they have released a list of rules for foreign visitors coming for the Games. These include:

Some of these make sense, like the rules of what to do if you get food poisoning, and I'm sure that plenty of host countries have refused entry visas to some people who had Olympic tickets. But some of these count as suppression of what are considered basic human rights.


“A person’s ability to express his or her opinion is a basic human right and as such does not need to have a specific clause in the Olympic Charter because its place is implicit,” said Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, at a meeting in Beijing in April.

It should be noted that Olympic rules have, for over 50 years, included a ban on political, religious, and racial propaganda on Olympic sites, but that is more about suspending political differences and descriminations than China's version:

The advisory issued by the Beijing Organizing Committee includes a ban on bringing into China “anything detrimental to China’s politics, economy, culture or moral standards, including printed material, film negatives, photos, records, movies, tape recordings, videotapes, optical discs and other items.”

China was supposed to, as part of their winning bid in 2001, improve their human rights records.

We're still waiting.

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