As Olympics begin, so do worldwide protests

As the Olympic Games opened in Beijing on Aug. 8, protesters around the world sought to capture a bit of the spotlight for human rights issues. In Ankara, the Turkish capital, a member of China's Uighur minority drenched himself in gasoline and set himself on fire before fellow demonstrators rushed to extinguish the flames and took him to a hospital. Thousands of exiled Tibetans took their grievances to the streets in Nepal and India. Demonstrations of one size or another also took place in London, Madrid, Berlin, Stockholm, Lisbon, Amsterdam and New York, with further marches planned in Washington and Toronto. The Olympic Games have furnished a kind of soapbox for a strikingly diverse array of rights groups. Like protesters in the spring during the Olympic torch's disrupted passage across the world, activists on Friday demonstrated on issues including China's human rights record, more autonomy for Tibet and rights for religious minorities. Typical was the protest in Paris outside a heavily guarded Chinese Embassy, where Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group of journalists that focuses on press freedom, demonstrated alongside Amnesty International, campaigners for Tibet and proponents of independence for the Uighurs, a Muslim minority in western China. Illustrating the unease that such protests have set off in some Western countries, the Paris police initially banned the demonstration. A judge later overturned the ban. The effort that received perhaps the most attention, however, was in Beijing itself, where Reporters Without Borders pirated a radio frequency and broadcast criticisms of China in Mandarin, French and English. The 20-minute broadcast began around 8am, 12 hours before the Olympics' opening ceremonies. Using miniature FM transmitters and antennas, Robert Ménard, head of the group, and a number of Chinese dissidents called for free speech and worldwide demonstrations during the ceremonies. "This is the first nonstate radio broadcast in China since the Communist Party took power in 1949," Mr. Ménard said. "We lost the battle for a boycott of the opening ceremony, but that does not mean that we will keep quiet." Meanwhile, Students for a Free Tibet, an advocacy group with more than 650 chapters in about 30 countries, said three Americans had been detained after trying to protest near the site of the opening ceremonies in Beijing, The Associated Press reported. The police did not immediately confirm the detentions. In Hong Kong, several protests were organized, but nothing like the crowds of tens of thousands here who still commemorate the Tiananmen Square killings each June 4. A lone British activist, dubbed Spiderman by the local news media, scaled a bridge and hung a banner that read, "The People of China Want Freedom From Oppression." The police removed the banner, and the man was detained. In Katmandu, Nepal, the police arrested more than 1,000 people who defied a ban on protests to gather outside the visa office of the Chinese Embassy, The A.P. reported. In New Delhi, almost 3,000 Tibetans chanting anti-China slogans marched outside the Indian Parliament, and a group of monks tried to storm the Chinese Embassy during the opening ceremonies. About 2,000 more marched in the Indian city of Dharamsala, where the exiled Tibetan leadership is based. In Brussels, hundreds of protesters turned out. Five of them stood outside the European Union headquarters sporting Olympic rings around their necks and chains around their wrists. According to Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the celebrated leader of the 1968 student protests in France and now co-president of the Green Party in the European Parliament, the demonstrations worldwide signified a solidarity with activists in China. "If we talk more about human rights in China today it is because of protests like this," Mr. Cohn-Bendit said. "Noise is good."