Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: olympics, sidney rittenberg, stephen spielberg
Sidney Rittenberg will be watching the Olympics this year from his home in the US but the 16-year veteran of the Chinese prison system supports US president George W Bush’s decision to go. Hoarse from Beijing’s air, he said he thought director Stephen Spielberg should not have pulled out of preparations for the event in protest at China’s relationship with the Sudanese goverment.
“Stephen Spielberg… [is] a man for whom I have a great deal of admiration and respect. A man who is genuinely a human rights activist and advocate and supporter,” Mr Rittenberg said.
“I think he’s wrong in his decision about the Olympics. What I think is wrong is that anything that encourages a boycott is very unfortunate. Anything that ordinary Chinese perceive as an attack on his or her Olympics is unfortunate.
“The kind of work … [people] do to expose human rights abuses and expose various evil things that go on here – and of course they go on in other places also - this kind of work is very important because this supports the people I call the vigorous reformers who want change… But my personal view is that this should be separated from the Olympic Games.
“These games are not the property of the Communist Party. Not now. These games are a national event that is in the heart of virtually very Chinese. Anything that is perceived as a foreign attack on the games is going to make ordinary Chinese angry and resentful. And for them to be angry and resentful at us is definately not[ good for] reform. So I think it’s important to… separate these issues.”
