The IOC is in cloud cuckoo-land!

The following scenes occurred this afternoon when the Olympic torch was ceremonially paraded through London. Protesters hijacked the intended joyous spirit of the Olympiad by trying to douse the torch with a fire extinguisher, wrench it from the hands of one of the runners, TV presenter Konnie Huq, and at every stage of the journey through London, protesters running into the road, blocking the runners and trying to grab the torch.



People like Lord Coe of the British Olympic Committee have voiced their support for the China games and given the opinion that 'sport and politics should be separate'. Whenever I hear this complacent self-satisfied view I nearly grind the enamel off my teeth. Some of these people live in cloud cuckoo-land. China was always going to be a controversial choice because of its human rights record and , once the Tibetan situation hit the front pages, one could predict the mayhem that would follow in its wake, not just in Tibet, but in backlash reactions to the Chinese holding the Games at all. Of course you cannot separate sport and politics and certainly not as represented by the Olympic Games, the most prestigious, most focussed event on earth which will draw the worlds attention on China in a way never before possible,



The Chinese leadership will get a wealth of kudos from a successful Games so is it not reasonable to expect those who abhor the excesses of the Chinese regime to try and prevent that happening and to draw attention to the hypocrisy of handing the Olympics to a country with such a stain on its record?



China executes (and this is the KNOWN figure) nearly 2000 people a year, not simply for capital crimes but for offences like embezzlement and tax fraud. China has been accused of forcibly harvesting the organs of prisoners for medical research, though proof is difficult to come by. People have been locked up for years simply for protesting about their homes being forcibly demolished to make way for Olympic Stadia. The great Chinese firewall obstructs people from using search engines to access western or democratic sites. The list of abuses is endless..and then there is Tibet.



The powers that be in the International Olympic Committee and the British Olympic Committee will, I fear, have to continue snorting with horrified indignation into their ports and brandy, lamenting loudly that all this protesting is so embarrassing and 'just not cricket'. I'm afraid they live in ivory towers if they think the Olympics should be sacrosanct and that the problems emanating from the policies of Beijing have nothing to do with them. They will have to get used to seeing ever increasing protests from ever more determined people as the Olympics get closer..and the protesters have my unqualified support!