U.S. and European Media

July 6, 2023

Associated Press: Olympics Highlight Human Rights in China. Child labor. Forced abortions. Religious persecution. Jailed dissidents. Cultural cleansing in Tibet and ethnic cleansing in Africa. For China, the run-up to next summer's Olympics in Beijing is looking like a marathon through a human-rights minefield. China sees a chance to wow the world as it hosts its first event watched by billions of people. The increasingly image-conscious country will measure success both with medals and whether the 2008 Olympics burnish its rising star. That gives activists, governments and celebrities with a cause an opportunity to influence policies they've long assailed. One issue China has budged on is Darfur, the region in Sudan where militias allegedly backed by the government have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians. China is the African nation's diplomatic patron and its biggest trading partner. After resisting calls for intervention, China dispatched a special envoy and lobbied Sudan to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force. Observers disagree whether those moves were motivated by external pressure or self-interest, pointing out that China continues to shield the regime from U.N. economic sanctions. Opening ceremonies consultant Steven Spielberg urged Chinese President Hu Jintao to change Sudan policy after the director was publicly branded a collaborator by Mia Farrow. The actress and U.N. goodwill ambassador has labeled these the ''genocide Olympics'' and last month announced an Olympic-style torch relay through countries with histories of mass atrocities. ''Whatever their motivation is, they can, I think, be channeled to being a much more constructive actor going forward,'' Darfur activist John Prendergast said of the Chinese.

Xinhua: China denounces efforts to connect Beijing Olympics with Darfur issue. China on Thursday dismissed the claim made by some people that the Beijing Olympic Games should be linked with China's policy on Darfur as "sheer nonsense". "Most of the people who harbor such a claim know little about China's efforts on the Darfur issue and some of them harbour a cold-war mentality and take a distorted view," China's Special Envoy for Darfur Liu Guijin told a briefing on Thursday afternoon. The briefing came days after Liu concluded his visit to Sudan and three other African nations and his participation in an international conference on Darfur in Paris. "China's endeavors have contributed a lot to the fact that Sudan accepted, without condition, the third phase of the peace plan over the Darfur issue put forward by former U.N chief Kofi Annan," he said.

Associated Press: Egyptian police cracks down on illegal African migrants seeking asylum in Israel. Some 37 Africans, mostly refugees from Darfur, were arrested Friday in the Sinai Peninsula by Egyptian authorities who said they were attempting to cross illegally into Israel. The African migrants, four from Congo, five from Eritrea, and 24 Sudanese refugees mostly from the war-torn western Darfur region, were arrested at the Mubarak Asslam Bridge located on the eastern side of the Sinai, an Egyptian security official said. Dozens of Sudanese refugees and other African migrants have been detained over the past few days for trying to cross into Israel from various points along Sinai peninsula. Many Sudanese find life difficult in Egypt, a country that struggles to provide jobs and social services for a growing refugee population. Egyptian riot police violently cleared a Sudanese refugee encampment in central Cairo in 2005, killing nearly 30 people. Israel says that about 2,800 people, including 1,160 Sudanese, have crossed illegally from Egypt through its porous Sinai desert border with Israel in recent years.

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