Olympic Athletes Gagged In Beijing
Reproduced from Yahoo News here, copyright SkyNews:
Olympic Athletes Gagged In Beijing
British athletes competing in this year’s Beijing Olympic Games will be forced to sign contracts banning them from talking about politics.
The clause - inserted in contracts for the first time - mean competitors must not comment on “politically sensitive” issues.
It then refers to the International Olympic Committee charter, which “provides for no kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other areas”.
The ban means athletes cannot discuss issues such as China’s human rights record or Tibet.
Those who refuse to sign-up will not be allowed to compete and anyone breaking the order will be sent home.
For the past 20 years, athletes have been told to sign contracts as a condition of taking part in the Games.
Simon Clegg, the British Olympic Association’s chief executive, told the Mail: “There are all sorts of organisations who would like athletes to use the Olympic Games as a vehicle to publicise their causes.
“I don’t believe that is in the interest of the team performance.
“As a team we are ambassadors of the country and we have to conform to an appropriate code of conduct.”
... Or how to shoot yourself in the foot!
Just saw this cover of the Special Feature of the Spiegel German magazine on the China Olympics and I thought I'd put it on here.
Translation:
THE LORDS OF THE RINGS
How China's regime oppresses its people - and betrays the Olympics
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February 10th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Worldwide musicians contributing in this year’s Dubearth posts will be forced to sign contracts banning them from talking about politics.
February 10th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Yes I DO want to rule the world but look at it this way: we can’t all be the boss but being on the board of directors has it’s advantage.
I expect everyone to add the phrase: “Heil Dubian, overlord of that is still good and righteous in the world. We pledge allegiance to Dubz and are ready to give our lives for him.”
February 10th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Personally, as a guy who doesn’t really get professional athletes, who listens to them talk politics and take them seriously anyways…or actors, or musicians…
We need to start our own political party. With a soundsystem and beer.
That’s it: Everyone! NEXT FRIDAY WE’RE GOING TO SPEEDY’S for the first annual DRESSED TO GET FUCKED Dubearth political mixer.
February 10th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Rib-eater — are you … Chinese? :/
February 10th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I act on my own, I don’t do political parties
February 10th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
no…rib-eater is Dutch, always thinking it is funny to ‘rephrase’ a line…..not
I believe
rib-eater would be proud not to sign, people would really notice it.
Giving up the dream because bribery is not my sport.
rgrds Markus
February 11th, 2008 at 7:19 am
seriously though shame on the International Olympic Comittee for such a distasteful choice for a host country.
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 am
Lol…
Well China has obviously nothing to hide
March 7th, 2008 at 5:42 am
Repeat-er Rib-eater Speed-player, I’m slow but I finally got the joke
G-Red, you know!
March 7th, 2008 at 10:49 am
ha ha….
btw; posting about dark sides of matters, I see.
means;
attracting a lot of positive views of the matter, like above gookle-ads does.
is that stupidly robotic, funny, annoying or well balanced info for ones opinion?
Don’t especially mean this topic, more philosophically…life is getting blurry, less intended.
well anyway , if an ad appears promoting SubEarth podcasts by ‘weedy repeater” I kill it.
If I read this uncomment myself one time, I will delete it
March 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
well they feed off the tags we put on the content…Depending on the tags that are used and some other factors it tries to guess what the page is about lol works through javascript.
anyways i like the stupid robot’s personality like this, it’s very naive and cute. I mean the poor thing can only read words and look for exact ad matches…hence got to the beijing olympics along with buy tickets to the olympics ads. I think it’s hilarious but we could always remove them if it’s really pissing anyone off.
March 8th, 2008 at 7:31 am
well my tags for this post were “Beijing Olympics, censorship, freedom of speech, China, human rights, olympic athletes contracts”, so no wonder we were getting these ads. i’ve taken beijing, china and contracts out now but of course you still get ads for the beijing olympics. i think there is balance this way, and it’s good to see fervent catholics read my post about how wonderful the compass film was haha! a nice little shock.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:32 am
he!!…but I made just a remark!
we get these ads, but some olympic big guy may notice your post.
by the way, lately there is a rather big amount of downloads and feeds from China…….so maybe you should TTS the Chinapost written above these 12 comments
March 27th, 2008 at 11:40 am
THE SAGA CONTINUES!!!
BBC Olympics staff details missing
Press Assoc. - 5 minutes ago
The BBC has called in police after details of 437 staff being sent to the Beijing Olympics went missing.
The corporation is sending 437 people, including some freelancers, to cover this year’s sporting event, which it says is 33 people more than covered the Olympics in Athens.
The BBC believes the files containing passport details, which were in Television Centre in west London, may have been stolen.
Internal security is being reviewed as a result of the incident.
A BBC spokesman said: “We can confirm that we are undertaking a full investigation into how two files containing accreditation information for the Beijing Olympics have gone missing from a private office in Television Centre.
“We believe these files may have been stolen, and following our own investigation, we have now involved the police.
“The information in the files includes passport details. However it does not include financial data and internal and external advice that we’ve taken suggests there is not a high risk of fraud.
“We are in the process of contacting everyone involved and are also reviewing our internal security as a matter of urgency.”
From Yahoo
March 29th, 2008 at 11:38 am
apparently there is debate within the EU of actually boycotting the opening ceremonies…no consencus though.
I’d hate to be in an athletes shoes though. Once every four years you get this chance and if it’s when your at your peek and the IOC blows it by even putting the olympics in china…must mean a lot of soulsearching and restless nights.
Canada went on record and actually stated there were clear human rights violations in tibet. It’s only worth mentionning because for our economy china is a good partner and there have traditionally been good relations between China and Canada since the 60s.
Then….the Dalai Lama started to come visit regularly. I think those visits got canadians thinking…perhaps in time Canada will realise that our relationship vis a vis the chinese government must be re-examined.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:45 am
actually the olympic flame will be passed to the chinese tomorrow or so I heard on the news or think I did
August 25th, 2008 at 11:00 am
well…now that its over, any comments?
Other than the fireworks were nice, of course…
August 26th, 2008 at 9:33 am
don’t know. didn’t watch any of it! :O