Sure, if you want to go to the Olympics, you’ve got to be the best at your sport. But for some, even that isn’t enough.

This year’s Beijing Olympics are possibly the most politicized Olympics to go down on the planet in decades. It’s always ugly when politics enter into something supposed to be as pure an ideal as the excellence of sport, but the polluted skies over Beijing aren’t the only source of dirt and grime these days.

Everyone knows about the furious and polarizing debates and protests over Tibet. It’s hardly news anymore that there are monks on the march, and Chinese police cracking down on them. What I find even more disturbing, however, is the crushing influence of the Chinese government over people’s free speech. When so-called public opinion polls emerge saying that over 90% of all Chinese people are wholeheartedly in favor of every aspect of the Chinese government, as I’ve been reading about in the New York Times, you know something’s wrong.

No country likes their government that much, unless they’re too frightened to say differently. And now, this strong tendency to crack down on opposing opinions has gone one step further: it entered the olympics.

Princeton student Joey Cheek, class of 2011, a world champion speed skater and former Olympian (who was only going to the Olympics to support his team) has had his visa revoked by the Chinese government. The reason? Cheek is an outspoken activist for the genocide in Darfur, and has been critical of China’s many investments in the Sudan. Read More »

In my last two articles, I have been examining China’s Human Rights record. In the first, I discussed China’s human rights abuses leading up to July 14, 2001, when the Olympic Committee agreed to have Beijing be the sight for the 2008 Summer Olympics. In the second, I detailed the negative impact that this decision is having upon the already stringent human rights of the Chinese populace.

Steven Spielberg withdrew from his position as an artistic adviser at the Beijing Olympics citing China’s record on Darfur. His decision received both praise and criticism.

In reaction to the resignation, Milan Zever, sports minister of Slovenia, the current presiding country of the European Union stated,

“Sports is too important. It is too important to use it as a political instrument.”

Really now? More important than a genocide? Read More »