WASHINGTON // The Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek, co-founder of Team Darfur, will not attend the Beijing Olympics after Chinese officials revoked his visa, his organisation said on Tuesday. Cheek, a speedskater who competed in the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, had planned to travel to Beijing on Wednesday, to support Olympic athletes who are members of Team Darfur. The international coalition of athletes campaigns to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region where, according to international experts, some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been driven from their homes since rebels took up arms against the government five years ago.
China is a major investor in Sudan's oil industry and is its largest weapons supplier. In the run-up to the Olympics, Beijing has come under international pressure to help end the conflict in Darfur. Washington-based Team Darfur said the Chinese Embassy revoked Cheek's visa on Tuesday with no explanation. Cheek said he was sad he would not be able to go. "Despite the fact that I've always spoken positively of the Olympic ideal, and never called for a boycott or asked an athlete to break an IOC (International Olympic Committee) rule, my visa was revoked less than 24 hours before my scheduled departure," Cheek said.
"The denial of my visa is a part of a systemic effort by the Chinese government to coerce and threaten athletes who are speaking out on behalf of the innocent people of Darfur." A representative of the Chinese Embassy in Washington could not be immediately reached for comment. Cheek announced in 2006 he would donate his gold medal bonuses to relief in Darfur and encouraged other athletes and sponsors to do the same.
The news comes as Olympic fever swept through the country as the Olympic Games torch made its way through the city ahead of Friday's opening ceremony, although state media reported that four foreign protesters displaying a "Free Tibet" banner in the Chinese capital were held by police. The protesters unfurled Tibetan flags and banners declaring "One World, One Dream: Free Tibet" and "Tibet will be free," the group Students for a Free Tibet said in an e-mailed statement. One banner said "Free Tibet" in Chinese.
The three men and one woman gathered near the main Bird's Nest Stadium, where the Games open on Friday, and two of the men climbed electricity poles to unfurl the banners, China's official Xinhua news agency reported. Tenzin Dorjee, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet, said the protest was intended to dramatise complaints about Tibet days before the Games begin. "As the Chinese leadership prepares its display of grandeur and power in Beijing ... it is waging a ruthless campaign of repression inside Tibet," he said in the e-mailed statement.
Police rushed to the scene after 12 minutes and took them away, the report said. Students for a Free Tibet said the protesters displayed the banners for nearly an hour. Xinhua said the four were all British nationals, but the group said they came from Britain and the United States. Separately, a small group of foreign reporters attended the screening of a new documentary about what Tibetans think of the Olympics, produced by a pro-Tibet group.
Held in secrecy in a dingy Beijing hotel, the screening was not interrupted by security officials, though the organiser, Jean-Jacques Schwenzfeier, who would only describe himself as an "activist", said he was aware he could be deported. "It may happen, but there are worse things than being deported," he said. "It wasn't possible for Tibetans to participate like they wanted, so this was the minimum we could do, to show our presence."
The Beijing Games torch relay was dogged by protests over Chinese rule in Tibet when it made its way through Paris, London and other cities earlier this year. On Wednesday, the torch began the final stage of its relay through Beijing under tight security. China has accused followers of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, of stirring riots and protests in Tibetan regions in March in a bid to upstage Olympic preparations. The Dalai Lama has denied the claim and said he does not oppose the Games.
But groups campaigning for an independent Tibet have said the Beijing Olympics should be an opportunity to voice criticism of Chinese policy. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule. *Reuters
