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Sunday, August 29, 2004 1:28:32 PM
Tibetan activists breach Olympic security in Athens
Olympic flag showing five rings as
bullet holes unfurled at main stadium
Petros Giannakouris / AP
The International Tibet Support Network stage a sit-in Sunday after scuffling with police as they displayed a banner with five bullet holes replacing the Olympic rings in the main stadium of the Olympics.
Updated: 1:08 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2004
ATHENS, Greece - Tibetan activists breached security at the Olympics on Sunday, unfurling a flag in Athens main stadium complex just hours before the closing ceremony to protest alleged human rights abuses in China, host of the 2008 Games.
The Tibetan activists, who have been targeting China ahead of the Beijing Olympics, took security by surprise and displayed the flag inside the sprawling Olympic complex. The flag showed five bullet holes instead of the five Olympic rings.
Two dozen police officers found the group after five minutes and confiscated the flag. Police searched their backpacks and found several more flags and t-shirts with the logo “China plays games with human rights.”
The five women and one man, all wearing the traditional chupa dress, sat down for two hours as hundreds of curious visitors looked on before being led away by police.
Chinese troops occupied Tibet in 1950 and Beijing considers the Himalayan region part of its territory.
“Beijing and China do not deserve the Games as long as human rights are violated in Tibet,” said Tenzin Sewo, a spokesman for the International Tibet Support Network.
Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Olympic flag showing five rings as
bullet holes unfurled at main stadium
Petros Giannakouris / AP
The International Tibet Support Network stage a sit-in Sunday after scuffling with police as they displayed a banner with five bullet holes replacing the Olympic rings in the main stadium of the Olympics.
Updated: 1:08 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2004
ATHENS, Greece - Tibetan activists breached security at the Olympics on Sunday, unfurling a flag in Athens main stadium complex just hours before the closing ceremony to protest alleged human rights abuses in China, host of the 2008 Games.
The Tibetan activists, who have been targeting China ahead of the Beijing Olympics, took security by surprise and displayed the flag inside the sprawling Olympic complex. The flag showed five bullet holes instead of the five Olympic rings.
Two dozen police officers found the group after five minutes and confiscated the flag. Police searched their backpacks and found several more flags and t-shirts with the logo “China plays games with human rights.”
The five women and one man, all wearing the traditional chupa dress, sat down for two hours as hundreds of curious visitors looked on before being led away by police.
Chinese troops occupied Tibet in 1950 and Beijing considers the Himalayan region part of its territory.
“Beijing and China do not deserve the Games as long as human rights are violated in Tibet,” said Tenzin Sewo, a spokesman for the International Tibet Support Network.
Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
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