China Dissidents Hope Olympics Not Like Berlin Games
From Reuters:
One of China’s leading dissidents, Chen Ziming, hopes the Beijing Olympics will be like the Seoul Games in 1988 and lead to political reform and not like the Nazi propaganda-driven Berlin Olympics of 1936.
But Chen and fellow dissident Wang Juntao are fearful the Games starting on Aug. 8 may change nothing, despite reform-minded forces inside the Chinese government pushing for a more liberal post-Olympics China.
“The Chinese government, intellectuals and the general populace, all of us do hope the Olympics is a success,” Chen said on Monday in Sydney during his first overseas trip.
“We hope to see the result of the Seoul Olympics, which would help push political openness and improvement in human rights and help the progress of the political system’s structural change,” said Chen, branded a mastermind of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and jailed for 13 years in 1991.
Origin: Michael Perry, Reuters
