Dissidents warned not to interfere

02/20/2001

Associated Press

BEIJING – Marring Beijing's efforts to present its best face for Olympic inspectors, police kept watch on jailed dissidents' families Monday and environmentalists criticized officials for dyeing lawns green.

The police surveillance and environmentalists' complaints came at the start of a pivotal week in Beijing's quest for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Inspectors with a 17-member Olympics assessment team began arriving in Beijing to judge the city's suitability.

Welcoming the first five inspectors at the city's shiny year-old airport, Vice Mayor Liu Jingmin said he hoped the team "could experience Beijing's change during their stay," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The most crucial moment for the Olympic bid has arrived," the state-run Beijing Morning Post said in a large front-page headline.

The team's assessment of Beijing's sports facilities, infrastructure and plans for the Olympics will be submitted to International Olympic Committee members. They pick the 2008 host from among five bidding cities in July.

Stung in 1993 by a two-vote loss to Sydney for the 2000 Games, Beijing has vowed not to lose this time. The city has tried to dissociate itself from China's human rights abuses and consulted environmental groups to show resolve in cleaning up Beijing's polluted air and water.

But the wife and sister of two jailed democracy campaigners who last week asked the inspectors to meet them said security agents were watching their homes. Zhang Hong, whose husband is serving a four-year sentence for sedition, said five officers came to her house Saturday, warning her to keep away from the inspectors.

Police twice called in Liu Jing, whose brother was jailed for four years after calling for political reforms, and told her to "keep quiet," she said.

A banned health and meditation movement, Zhong Gong, also appealed to the International Olympic Committee to pressure China over the imprisonment of some 600 of the sect's leaders.

The London-based Free Tibet Campaign also issued a statement saying awarding Beijing the Games "seems an inappropriate reward for a human rights situation that is getting worse."

In an effort to prevent such actions from hurting Beijing's bid, the city issued its own appeal. In state-run newspapers Monday, Mayor Liu Qi said "politics should not be mixed with sports. ... We are firmly opposed to any attempts to foil Beijing's bid on the excuse of human rights."

Liu promised to build top-quality venues should Beijing win and said officials will let the inspectors judge the city warts and all. "We will not paper over our shortcomings," he said.

But three environmental campaigners taken on as bid advisers complained that the city wasted time and money by dyeing lawns an emerald green – part of a massive cleanup aimed at making Beijing, normally gray in winter, look as colorful as possible.