On the morning of January 1st, the city of Pasadena, outside Los Angeles, held its 2008 New Years Rose Parade. The Rose Parade is a traditional event to celebrate the New Year; this was the 119th parade, and it was an especially unique one. Many human rights activists were upset that the Beijing Olympics float was allowed to participate in the Rose Parade yet the Pasadena city government refused to allow the Human Rights Torch Relay join; so many human rights groups held up signs on the sidelines in protest.
Human rights groups joining in the protest included: The Wei Jingsheng Foundation, Amnesty International's Pasadena branch, San Diego Conscience Foundation, CalTech Falun Gong student club, Los Angeles Friends of Tibet, and the Los Angeles branch of The Global Alliance for Democracy and Peace (GADP).
The protest activities started on the morning of December 31 and continued all the way up through the Rose Parade. Members of the Human Rights League and Human Rights Torch Relay held up signs on the side of the road that read, "Without human rights, there can be no Olympics," "Chinese Communist Party (CCP): Stop persecuting Falun Gong," "Please turn your back to the CCP's float of shame," "I would rather die than live without liberty," "CCP: Evil empire," and other such signs in English and Chinese. They also had a banner showing five handcuffs to represent the five-ringed Olympic emblem. They even stayed through the night to distribute flyers, posters, and t-shirts with the five handcuff Olympic symbol printed on the back to those waiting to watch the parade. The protest activities received much support from the public.
Well-known democracy activist Wei Jingsheng had two impressions after watching the Rose Parade: first, he observed joyous Americans celebrating the new year, their faces all smiles, full and self-confident, totally natural smiles. Second, he noticed that as the CCP's float went the course of the parade there were always four police officers right behind it, this escort was something none of the other floats had, it shows that the CCP has a guilty conscience. Also, the dance team of the CCP's float would dance a few steps and then kneel down for a bit, it was strange.
Wei Jingsheng pointed out that in selecting Beijing to hold the 2008 Olympics it is a dictatorial communist party as host, similar to 1936 Olympics held in Nazi Germany, it is an erroneous decision, it is a repeat of that bit of history. At that time the nations of the world did not recognize the nature of the Nazi regime, but today more and more people are seeing clearly the true face of the CCP, and thus the voice of opposition is growing louder and louder. He said, what we need to do is to help more people understand the nature of the CCP, so that the voice of opposition will grow louder, and not allow this tragedy of history to be repeated.
Members of the overseas Taiwanese organization, The Global Alliance for Democracy and Peace (GADP)'s Los Angeles branch, also joined the protest in the early morning of New Years Day. Alliance's member Ms. Lin Da said that protest of the Beijing float has already drawn the attention and support of a wide swath of American society. When she discussed the matter with people on the subway, Americans all said they knew about it. She said, Taiwan was also originally an autocratic system, and now, even though we already enjoy democracy, we still have to work hard to bring democracy to all of China.
One of the organizers of the protest, Mr. Li Jianzhong, said the CCP attempted to use the Rose Parade to make itself look good: to paint a picture of peace and prosperity, and to cover up its disregard for human rights and its cruelty toward its own people, but the results turned out just the opposite. Through the process of protesting the Beijing float over half of a year, human rights groups that do not normally work together united and raised their resounding voices in unison "persecution of human rights and the Olympic games can not coexist." This led to widespread attention from U.S. media and the American public. The continued reporting on the matter by mainstream media enabled more of the American public to understand the truth about the persecution of human rights that takes place in China, even such that some middle and elementary school children have come to be concerned with what happens in China.
Mr. Li Jianzhong said, this is similar to when members of Reporters Without Borders choked the opulent celebration that Beijing spent so much money on for the 365-day countdown to the Olympic Games in Beijing. No matter how the CCP glosses it over, the number of people who understand the nature of the CCP is growing larger and larger, it has already grown to become an unstoppable tide of history.
(The Wei Jingsheng Foundation is grateful to the Epoch Times, especially its reporter Ji Yuan for this report, and it is responsible for this version of the English translation.)
