News from East Turkisthan

Well, there is no news from East Turkisthan. Look at the neighbours. What chance is there of news. What chance to escape?

Here are the statistics for when China entered neighbouring Tibet:

• 87,000 Tibetans dead in the first day
• 80,000 refugees - 1000's perish in the mountains
• 70,000 imprisoned - more than half perish through starvation
• Crops shipped to China - hundreds of thousands die of starvation
• Those sentanced to death have their tongues torn out by meathooks to prevent them saying 'long live the Dalai Lama"
• Many buried alive, scolded to death, disembowelled, crucified.
• Little children forced to shoot their own parents
• Celebate monks forced to publicly rape nuns
• 8 out of 6259 monastries escape damage

And we support this becuse of trade. We all have a voice. Use it. Do something for these people. Tell a friend about it. A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves - and we will deserve ours if we do not speak out now.

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves"

Freedom of speech denied to British athletes

This picture is of the England team being forced to give a Nazi salute in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Embarassing eh? A mistake definately. But we have learnt nothing. In 2008 it was announced that British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's appalling human rights record – or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.

Exactly what planet are they all on? Oh yes, its the ' let's be nice to China' planet. Never mind that the lack of fair trials are a serious concern, with thousands of people locked up in "re-education through labour" camps without any trial at all. Thousands each year are sentenced to the death penalty, even for non-violent crimes. Free speech remains severely curtailed, with around 30 journalists behind bars and internet users denied information and jailed for their blogs. And what about Tibet? What about the Uighurs? What about (dare I say it) common sense?

Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, who built reputations and vast fortunes on the principles of free expression and access to information, have trampled over their own ideals in the rush for a slice of the Chinese market. They shut down blogs and censor their own search engines - all in the name of ..... MONEY.

Well it's not good enough is it. Can we really tolerate this type of behaviour, and indeed become infected by it? If we allow our kow-towing to China to inform many more decisions we may as well hang our few remaining shreds of democracy in the National People's Congress of the People's Republic.

Remember that Nazi salute.

Prince of Wales Boycotts Beijing Olympics

My Tibetan friend told me last night that Prince Charles was to boycott the Beijing Olympics. Funny that the BBC hasn't seen fit to debate this issue.

So, the Queens firstborn son (as the Lama will put it) has acted true to his own heart and will quietly boycott the Chinese Olympics to highlight the issues of gross human rights abuses by that country. Of course the UK government will have us think poorly of this man. They have snubbed his opinion time and again. Eventual circumstances have proved him to be more in tune with the mood of the nation than our arms dealing, consumer-pandering elected government.

I wonder if his sister and brothers will follow suit and put human rights before self interest?

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2248359,00.html has the Guardian story