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__**OLYMPIC TORCH

RELAY **__



Sub questions: 
 * Did anyone get hurt??
 * Who were the protestors??
 * Why were they protesting??
 * How was this relay different to others??

"An Olympic medal is the greatest achievement and honor that can be received by an athlete." But is one gold medal worth the suffering of humans??? Should China be able to give out the prized gold medals and act like their country is perfect??
 * Jeff Fenech ** (Australian boxer, 1984 Summer Olympics)

 **__Intro:__** The Olympics is supposed to be a peaceful event where countries come together to see the worlds best athletes. So why was there so much protest about the torch relay and over the whole event??? Hopefully my research will answer my questions over this protest.

**__Reasons for the protest.__** One of the main reasons why the protests began is because most people didn’t want the Olympics to go on because of Chinas human rights history. China Has a lot of human rights violations Since the Tiananmen square protest. the human rights issue of China has come to the forefront including the one child policy and the effect it has on baby girls and capital punishment, Also there are many other reasons why people are protesting such as the treatment of North Korean refugees also there has been a lot of trouble in tibet with people being held and tortured. Countries have been looking into Chinas human rights including groups such as Amnesty International and Human rights watch. Most of the results have not been pleasing. Capital punishment is when people are punished for crimes by death. Capital comes from Latin descent and means 'off with the head' and that is sometimes literally what they do. At times people can be killed for crimes that are not their own or without trial. China is doing a lot of this in Tibet. The one child policy causes a lot of problems and human rights violations. Because Boys are preferred more than girls. This means if families have a girl they try and get rid of them, so they can have a boy. This causes problems for girls who get killed and literally kicked to the curb. __   Most torch relay’s carry on peacefully each four years that the Olympics come around. But the only massive protest against the torch relay or the Olympics came in 2008 with the Beijing Olympics. I think protestors used the relay for just a place to protest against allowing the Olympics to carry on while china had so many human rights violations going on. And to show people how serious some of Chinas issues are. The torch relay to some people is seen as controversial. In 1956 the summer games in Melbourne, nine students, including Barry Larkin staged a fake relay when it entered Sydney . The group wanted to protest against what they thought was too alike to the flame with Nazi origins. Barry pretended to be an Olympic athlete carrying the fake torch in which he presented to the mayor of Sydney. In the past torch relays would only had simple security such as a 15 or so police and support staff. These people were only protecting the athletes from crazy sports fans. But in some countries the athletes would more protecting depending on where they are.
 * What makes this relay different to others? ** __

__**  Consequences    **__ Yes some people were seriouslly hurt even killed. One man wouldn't move from his own home when the government had ordered him to, he was repeatedly kicked, he died a painful slow death there was also many other deaths that thhe Chinese government would like to keep on the 'down low'. Also there was scuffles with the police which produced some strained limbs, bruises and grazes but nothing as serious, although one man did try and light himself on fire but he was stopped by police fortunately. He was protesting about the treatment of North Korean refugees in China.

__ **Protestors.** __   Thousands protested but who were they?? You would be suprized who protested many were just normal people who didnt agree with the way China treats their people and other people. Many were students and teachers even. But a lot were the human rights activists and pro-democracy groups. These pro-democracy groups were protesting because of China being a communist country.

__** Conclusion: **__ When I look at the way China treated this protest makes it more clear why people are protesting, China delt with most of the protest with brutal force which caused in some cases death. I don't think this is the way to treat people, i think this is the same reason why people were protesting about the oylmpics to go on in China when they do so wrong.

In my mind the protest didnt achieve much other then dead bodies, the torch relay still went on other than a few stopages and so did the olympics.

Was the oylmpics worth all the people China had to hurt or kill to let the olympics go on??????

__** http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/24/torch.relay/index.html [|www.wikipedia.com] [|www.amnestyinternational.com] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/world/europe/08torch.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss [|http://www.telegraph.co.uk] [|www.humanrightscourch.com]
 * __ Info from.

Pictures from [|www.Google.com] and [|www.nytimes.com]