Overseas Chinese rally in London, Paris

[shan]

"Anti-violence, anti-slander!" Tomorrow (on the 19th), a patriotic overseas Chinese parade will be held in   continental Europe and North America.

[shan]

PARIS - Chinese expatriates and students in France are planning a peaceful demonstration Saturday at the Place de la Republique square in Paris, to express support for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and establish the truth about China and Tibet.

About 10,000 people are expected to join the rally, the first ever to be staged by the Chinese in France, said Wu Rui, a Chinese student and the event's coordinator, at a press briefing Thursday.

Wu said the demonstration is aimed at expressing support for the Beijing Olympics, protesting against the views expressed in some European media, telling the truth about China and Tibet -- issues on which the European people are not well informed, and consolidating the French-Chinese friendship.

In a statement, the organizers said that some Western media had ignored the truth and published false information about the March 14 riots in Lhasa, capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region, and about incidents surrounding the global Olympic torch relay.

"During the relay of the Olympic flame in Paris on April 7, thousands of overseas Chinese were deeply offended and outraged by actions against the flame, in particular the attack by a 'pro-Tibet independence' activist on a disabled Chinese athlete carrying the Olympic torch," said Wu.

"We are protesting against the stance of the European media, which did not provide fair and objective information on the Olympic torch relay in Paris," Wu added.

"The mobilization is via Internet, and we expect Chinese from all parts of France to take part in this event," said Wu, adding that similar events were scheduled for the same day in London and Berlin.

The demonstration, expected to last four hours, will include stands with a photographic and video presentation on Tibet titled "economic progress in recent years," speeches from Chinese settled in France and traditional songs.

[shan]

did you guys read the news ?

the french media called China is using france as a scapegoat and their president will honor dalai lama a gold medal !!!!

[shan]

LONDON -- Thousands of Chinese students and expatriates in Britain staged a silence demonstration at a square opposite to the British Parliament building on Saturday, in protest against distorted reports by some Western media including BBC on the March 14 Lhasa riots.

More than 3,000 people joined the demonstration, the first ever staged by the Chinese community in Britain.

"Today we are here to oppose media distortion and media fabrication in the recent events. We are here in a quest for objectivity, fairness and justice," a demonstration coordinator read out a statement.

"As we heard, we saw, we say BBC on some of the recent events has misled the British public and the rest of the world by providing intensive untruthful reports and biased coverage."

"We are afraid that media distortion and media fabrication are going to build up the barrier and bring hatred between the Western world and the Chinese people. This attempt reminds us of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain."

"We appeal to British media agencies to end media distortion and media fabrication."

"At the time of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, we warmly welcome people from all over the world to come to our country to see, to hear, to touch the real China and to talk to the real Chinese people."

The demonstrators carried anti-distortion banners like "BBC unfair," "Stop media distortion, respect history, truth and China, " and "Softkiller, don't spread hatred."

The demonstrators, through several display boards, told the truth about the March 14 riots in Lhasa, capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region, and by comparing some original photos with the ones grafted by certain Western media organizations, revealed how some media agencies distorted the truth.

The rally was mobilized via the Internet and received enthusiastic responses from all parts of Britain.

And in Paris, thousands of Chinese students and expatriates staged a demonstration to support the Beijing Olympic Games and denounce the biased and distorted reports on the March 14 Lhasa riots by some French media.

Organizers say between 6,000 and 7,000 turned out for Saturday's protest, at Paris' Place de la Republique. Police officials put the number of demonstrators at around 3,500.

Many of the demonstrators were wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase "Let's make the Olympics a bridge, not a wall," in French.

Similar protests were also staged in other European cities on Saturday.

[shan]

my goddness , as an overseas Chinese , can't he spell "liar" correctly ?

[shan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7347821.stm

[shan]

chinadaily
....

The tranquility in Old Palace Yard didn’t dampen the ferventness of the peaceful demonstration, the protesters well-prepared themselves with obtrusive banners, flags, English handouts and photo boards showing hard evidence of what actually had happened in China and its Tibetan Autonomous Region.

"We come here with a sincere aspiration to raise people’s awareness of the media distortion, we try to provide British people with some essential information that was lacking on BBC and other western media; people will make their own judgment with this missing part of the truth“, said Miss Qin, an economics student from Cambridge University. Accordingly, she said, the demonstrators intended to convey this message peacefully and cool-mindedly to British people and also to Chinese people; they hope that the audience could read through the message from this less spoken but more powerful way of demonstration. “We sincerely invite British people to come to China, meet the friendly, peace-loving Chinese people.“

On the sideline of the demonstration area designated by the police, Nebojsia, a careers adviser from London was busy with handing out home-made graphs of his own protest against BBC's one-sided reports. “I have seen the reports and I have watched the broadcasts, there is nothing for BBC to deny, it's biased.” He was also impressed by the silence demonstration, “I didn’t expect a protest in a silent way can be so striking and forceful, it's brilliant, and it’s a stark contrast with the biased media’s loudly and lousy news pieces.“

A trigger fact for this massive protest was BBC’s and other news organizations' reports on April 6 London Olympics torch relay. “There were, actually, thousands Chinese people lining along the relay route on April 6, I was one of them”, said Qin, “we were really excited to welcome the sacred flame in London streets together with many local people, but we were so disappointed when we see the news coverage of BBC. It only showed images of the pro-Tibetan-independence activists in the streets, who tried their very best to ruin the torch relay into chaos.” Qin’s opinion was shared by many her peer demonstrators.
There were many Chinese people coming to join or support the demonstration after they learned the information online or on some Chinese newspapers circulated in UK. Miss Huang, a student from University of Reading was among them, she made her long way to London this morning, she told reporter how excited she was to join the demonstration. “The first time I saw the posts online about this rally, I immediately made up my mind for this trip. I called my mom back in China, telling her my decision; she was so supportive that she then mailed me Chinese national flags from my hometown.”

The demonstration went on in surprisingly uniformed silence, no one talked aloud, no one strolled around; the few London police officers were busy with reminding passer-bys and photo journalists of coming cars. Many people standing beside the demonstration area were heartedly moved by the scene, Mr. Wang from Shenyang, northeast China, told reporter that he was going to witness the protest to the end in the afternoon

[shan]

LOS ANGELES - Tens of hundreds of overseas Chinese rallied Saturday in Paris, London, Berlin, Los Angeles and other cities to support Chinese government, and oppose biased Western media reportage of the Beijing Olympic torch relay as well as their distorted coverage of the recent riot in China's Tibet, which was instigated by the 14th Dalai Lama segments.


meanwhile, protests against "Tibet independence" continued in several Chinese cities on Sunday.  Demonstrators were seen in the northwestern city Xi'an, the northeastern city Harbin and eastern city of Jinan,following Saturday's demonstrations in Beijing, Xi'an, Hefei, Qingdao, Wuhan, and Kunming, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In Los Angeles, more than 5,000 people gathered outside the Hollywood office of TV broadcaster CNN, to protest against one of the channel's commentators, Jack Cafferty, who described Chinese people as a "bunch of goons and thugs", and China-made goods as "junk".


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/20/content_6630183.htm

......China daily news

[shan]

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_476f3a7001008ytc.html

more photos in LA

[Daedalus]

In the Cold War the Puerto Rican solution was held in contempt by the Communist world. The Congress passed legislation which acknowledged P.R.'s right to define itself as an American state, an indepentent state or an American commonwealth. P.R. has never been able to make up its mind on the matter. People are allowed to vote in the federal election but it possesses no electoral votes. In 2000 they could have swung the entire American election. They are solidly Democratic. Don't you think that hurts? Language has always been an issue of concern. They prefer Spanish rather than English. Nevertheless the Dems have broken barriers which permit minorities to participate in civic affairs. There's always a chance. When my family arrived from Canada TV brought home the courage of Selma and the despair of Watts but Dr. King was convinced that there was a place for everybody in America and no need for fear. The Chinese can't do this job by themselves. Now I don't blame you for your irritation with the Tibetans but they are convinced that there's no future in China for themselves. Now that's one thing that the Chinese can do something about! And its your effectiveness with Tibet which will possibly engage Taiwan in the matter and affect the outcome of that one. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Take a glance at the FT's interview with him http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8bdc479c-2a5f-11dd-b40b-000077b07658.html