Taipei, Feb. 21 (CNA) Major powers have ignored China's human rights violations in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which is reminiscent of what happened before the 1936 Berlin Olympics, human rights advocates said Thursday in an international forum.
"Nazi authorities held high hopes for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which they saw as an occasion to showcase the so-called German economic miracle and assert Germany's world power status, " said Seweryn Ozdowski, former commissioner of the Commonwealth of Human Rights in Australia.
"The Olympics in China seem to be set in exactly the same mould, " Peter Westmore, chairman of the Australia-based National Civil Council, said on the first day of an international forum on human rights in China and the 2008 Olympics.
The two-day forum was organized by the Coalition to Investigate the persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) and the Taiwan Culture Foundation.
Another similarity between the two Olympics 64 years apart could be found in major powers' neglect of the host countries repeated human rights violations, the forum participants claimed.
"In 1936, Nazi dictatorship was already well-established, with political executions without trial, censorship of the media, abolition of the freedom of association and the racist Nurnberg Laws," said Ozdowski.
"The Communist Party of China (CPC) has not improved its human rights situation over the past 10 years, " said Michel Wu, former director of the Mandarin service of Radio France International.
"Despite this, the Western democracies have decided to overlook these developments in the name of unity of Olympic spirit, " he said.
While a number of celebrities, including American film director Steven Spielberg, and various non-government organizations have called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, most Western countries have decided to participate.
"Many Western governments, including my own, are afraid to offend Beijing, fearing that to raise the issue of human rights in a serious way would jeopardize trade and other links. Businesses, particularly those with subsidiaries in China and including media organizations, also fear offending China, " Westmore said.
"We should take comfort from the fact that just as courageous and far-sighted people opposed the German Olympics in 1936, today we are called on to object to the conducting of the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, " he added.
"China should not hold the Olympics. The CPC had no intention from the first to keep the promise that it would improve the human rights situation in China, " said Kan Ando, Japan vice president of CIPFG Asia.
The advocates called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics as China has failed to fulfill its promise made in 2001 when it won the Olympics hosting bid to improve the human rights situation in China, so that the communist regime will learn a lesson and human rights in China can be protected.
"Let us remember that a boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympics could have prevented World War II and holocaust, " Ozdowski said.