The Olympic torch relay has come to San Francisco today, on its way to China for the coming summer Olympics. Activist groups, predominantly those who are upset about China’s claim to — and ongoing occupation of — Tibet, have been planning massive protests.
Protests have been following the torch through cities around the world, and San Francisco has been slated by both sides to be a sort of climax. The city has one of the largest Chinese populations in the country (and which itself has mixed feelings about the protests), and it also has one of the largest populations of vocal political activists. Yesterday, as this Reuter photo shows, protestors hung banners on the Golden Gate Bridge.
I’ve been trying to find breaking coverage on local television stations, but it’s been spotty — so far, the best source seems to be Twitter. Specifically, the tweets provided by Scott Beale of web-hosting company Laughing Squid (you can follow Beale here. See the screenshot below.
The fact that Twitter is a great source for breaking news is itself old news, but for our Bay Area readers, this is perhaps the most powerful example of it yet.
10 Comments
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Lar said:
Coverage is spotty because the relay only just now has started.
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John Moseley said:
Go, protest now! Fuck China! Yahoo!
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Eric Eldon said:
@john moseley. i wouldn’t say that. i think any government that does bad things needs to be held accountable by the world. this goes for the chinese government, the us government, and many others.
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Jon said:
This is a bit of an understatement: “Activist groups, predominantly those who are upset about China’s claim to — and ongoing occupation of — Tibet”.
It’s not simply their occupation, but also the manner in which they conduct their occupation. There are many, many human rights issues within China controlled territories as well as proper. It’s shameful that we cater to their exploitation of their own people through the enormous economic ties we are continuously building.
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Yuri Ammosov said:
Eric: Olympic Committee gave the 2008 Games to China in full knowledge of its human rights record. It is very bad business to pretend that everyone’s eyes opened right now, since Tibet is Chinese since 1949. Moreover, the anti-Chinese protests highly smells with hypocrisy: some years ago police gave a sound beating to Buddhist monks in South Korea, then in Thailand, and press barely budged. This time, Internet is full of evidence of human rights abuses on both sides but for some reason, Chinese are squarely given the full blame. I expected that California, with its Chinese population, will be less biased, but hell, I was wrong.
Games are meant to be a time of peace and unity, not a time of politicking and partisanship. In 1980s US boycotted Moscow Games, in 1984 Soviets boycotted LA Games in retaliation. Who won? No one. Sport lost.
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Em said:
You missed the best coverage here: http://blog.studentsforafreetibet.org/livesf with their live google map!
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bensoung said:
there are many know-nothingism bragging here,so upset for a so-called high civilization society, bullshit!!Liar!Bragger!You are nothing!Fuck!China is better than any of yours.
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Grace said:
Last I heard, the Olympics were supposed to be a time of peace and fun. If people want to protest the Chinese government, couldn’t they do it after the games?
The Olympics have been held in MANY countries. Not just China. The Olympics in a way, are a GLOBAL event, not a China-only event.
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Eric Eldon said:
Guys, I’ve noticed a couple racist comments come in on this post, that I’ve deleted. No hate speech allowed. Period.
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Bubba said:
Wait a minute, any white American and European protesting against Chinese treatment of Tibetans or any other groups of people for that matter are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. These are people (white Americans) who are living in a nation that does not belong to them. Most of them are descendents of slave owners, so who are they to criticize and protest the Chinese when the Chinese probably learned this kind of actions from them? Apartheid, holocausts during WWII, colonization, slavery, etc, were all started by whites. But now here the are attacking the Chinese! How ironic! The just fear the quick rise and power the China is experiencing, and since it’s a non-white nation, every white person in the world is buckling at the knees.
6 Trackbacks
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