Obsolete

As periodically occurs, mostly on special occasions or holidays, the Sun's slightly altered its logo. This one however is especially intriguing:

Looks like someone's decided that the Olympic torch relay needs defending. I wonder who that could possibly be?

The tone for this defence of the ancient right to run a flaming stick through capital cities is set by the Sun's report on the protests yesterday in Paris:

THE Olympic torch was snuffed out four times yesterday as it was relayed through Paris – before eventually being put on a BUS to shield it from anti-Chinese mobs.

Anti-Chinese mobs. Not human rights protesters or Free Tibet campaigners, but anti-Chinese mobs.

In a futile effort to keep some semblance of balance, there is a column at the side dealing with the accusations against China, but perhaps there's something in the fact that it leads with how China executes 22 a day. This is after all the newspaper that recently declared that 99% of its readers wanted the death penalty brought back. It's nearly 300 words in before the Sun finally suggests why the protests have been so vociferous:

Protesters are furious at China’s brutal crushing of opponents in Tibet, which has sparked outrage in neighbouring countries including Nepal.

But wait! Aren't the protests themselves incompatible with the values of the Olympics?

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge blasted the protests as “not compatible with the values of the torch relay or the Olympic Games”.

He insisted of China’s human rights record: “The International Olympic Committee has expressed its serious concern and calls for a rapid, peaceful resolution in Tibet.”

NO matter how many times protesters put out the real Olympic torch, they won't be able to extinguish our special cut-out-and-keep Olympic torch. Click HERE for your very own flame.

IF France fielded as many troops in Afghanistan as cops deployed on the streets of Paris yesterday, the Taliban could be defeated overnight.

If they were prepared to fight.

Coachloads of club-carrying police were drafted in to protect the Olympic torch and keep unarmed civilian protesters at bay.

And they still couldn’t keep this iconic symbol alight.

The flame was snuffed out FOUR times as it made its faltering way to Beijing — not by demonstrators but by city officials.

Finally, it was put on a bus for “safety reasons” — even though there was no more violence in Paris than in London, where the flame survived without a flicker.

There is widespread sympathy for the Free Tibet campaigners dogging the flame’s journey — at huge loss of face to China’s Communist regime.

But this is supposed to be the Eternal Flame, an international symbol of the sporting ideal.

The countries through which it passes owe a duty to the Olympic legacy to keep it burning.

The French should have guarded it properly or had nothing to do with it at all.

Labels: China, Olympic flame protests, Olympics, Rupert Murdoch, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, Tibet

The official view of yesterday's relay, expressed by government ministers and torchbearers alike, seems to be that the halting passage through London was a "triumph for democracy", a kind of demonstration to the world of how free speech should be allowed. What nonsense. I was reporting yesterday's protests for the Guardian and, from the outset, police identified anti-Chinese protesters and subjected them to different rules to red-flag waving spectators.

Before the relay had even properly begun, my colleague witnessed police removing T-shirts and flags from demonstrators. At Ladbroke Grove, spectators carrying Tibetan flags were relegated to a pavement across the road, kept apart from a carnival-style reception.

It was the same story at Bloomsbury Square, which, along with Whitehall, was the most heated part of the relay. Several protesters were dragged away. I saw one woman asked to place her anti-Chinese posters in plastic bags. She told me she had been told by two officers that her materials, which complained about China's treatment of animals, were "inflammatory".

Demonstrators who did not obey police requests to stand in designated areas were repeatedly threatened with anti-terrorist legislation. On what grounds?

Police were also restrictive towards the press. I was threatened with arrest several times - for indiscretions such as having one foot on pavement and another, dreadful as it sounds, on the road. Jim Jameson, a freelance photographer, told me he was "thrown to the ground" while photographing an arrest near Whitehall.

If you wanted to be slightly glib, you could draw parallels with a protest that the police decided not to interfere with, where similarly inflammatory slogans were shouted and on clear display:

Then though it was just the whole country and freedom of speech which was being abused, whereas yesterday it was the Chinese, who are notoriously easily offended.

Then via Justin we have the athletes themselves:

Duncan Goodhew, the former Olympic swimmer who ran with the torch, said: "It shows how extreme things can get in this country and it's a great shame. It's such a bad example for children.

Quite so. Children seeing adults protesting against a PR operation by a tyrannical human rights abuser? Might give them ideas above their station, what?

We also have the pleasure of the Murdoch press having to tie itself in knots, not able to be too critical because of News Corporation's business interests in the country, which leads to the publication of garbage such as today's Sun leader, hilariously titled Freedom wins:

THE Olympic torch’s troubled journey across London was a triumph for democracy.

We are lucky to live in a country that values its citizens’ right to hold lawful, peaceful public protests.

As holders of the next Games in 2012, Britain was right to show solidarity with the Olympic movement by allowing the flame to be paraded on our soil.

Protesters claim it gave China a propaganda victory.

But our Prime Minister repeatedly warns China about its human rights record. Only yesterday Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell publicly condemned it as “reprehensible”.

What’s more, Gordon Brown will show his personal support for Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, by meeting him when he visits Britain next month.

Labels: China, Duncan Goodhew, Olympic flame protests, Olympics, protests, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, Tibet