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Human Rights Torch Relay Kickoff In Boston

This is a special report for SOH Radio Network. Human Rights Torch Relay in Boston.

The torch-lighting protests Beijing Olympic 2008 began last August in Athens and have traveled to Australia, Europe and South America before coming to the U.S. 30th of March .

Paul Guzzi, Ironman triathlete, carries the torch in the Boston Human Rights TOrch Relay marathon kickoff. Paul Guzzi ran 27 miles on the 30th of March, carrying a torch and a message.

“I’m feeling very excited,” said Guzzi, who teaches physical education at Hardy Elementary School in Wellesley.

“This is really the first time I’m doing something that means so much to so many other people,” he added. “If you don’t take a stand on what you believe in, you’re doing yourself an injustice.”

The flame he held along the Marathon route, from Hopkinton to a Boston Common rally, burned to protest the Summer 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing. It represented momentum spreading across the globe - outrage over the communist Chinese government’s alleged human rights abuses, including the capture and killing of countrymen who practice a banned form of meditation, Falun Gong. It also includes the human rights violations which is being kept secret over Tibet, Darfur, Sudan and many more.

Protesters included Tibetans in native costume, who held up signs reading, “Falun Gong are killed for their organs - stop the bloody harvest,” and, “Speak up for human rights, stand up for freedom.”

Te Chen, a Chinese-American who has ancestors from China’s mainland, said she knows an MIT student whose mother was arrested and is now in a labor camp. Western media isn’t reporting the abuses and many Chinese people don’t know what’s happening because the national newspapers are censored, she said.

“There’s no freedom for speech, there’s no freedom for religions,” she said near the gazebo on Hopkinton’s town common. “That’s the reason why we’re here.”

“The Chinese regime will use the Olympics for their image, while we should not cease to use this opportunity to expose the real situation in China.” — Belgian Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven

The run’s organizing group, The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, is questioning if China deserves to host the Olympic Games - set to start Aug. 8 - in light of the country’s human rights violations.

At a rally on Boston Common, speakers were expected to include state Sens. Edward Augustus, D-Worcester, and Dianne Wilkerson, D-Boston, and representatives from Students Against Genocide, Doctors Without Borders and the Tibetan Association of Boston.

Now, let’s listen to the following speeches made by speakers John Kusumi, Emily Cunningham, Lobsang Sangey, Karen Hirschfeld, Zhong Jijei, harold Shurtleff, and Tenzin Wangyal.

Here is the first speaker, John Kusumi, a funder of The China Support Network. [Recordings]
The second speaker is Emily Cunninham, a representative of Student Anti Genocide Coalition. [Recordings]
The third speaker is Lobsang Sangey, a representative of Tibatan Association of Boston. [Recordings]
The forth speaker is Karen Hirschfeld, a Sudan Campaign Director. [Recordings]
The fifth speaker is Zhong Jijei, a spokeman of Hong Kong situation. [Recordings]
The sixth speaker is Harold Shurtleff, a coordinator of The John Birch Society, endeavor to less government, more responsibility, and with Gods help, to build a better world. [Recording]
The seventh speaker is Tenzin Wangyal, a law student at Northeastern University School of Law. [Recordings]

This has benn Catherine Hennessy reporting for SOH Radio Network. Web site www.sohnetwork.com