Dear Editor,

China says Beijing's air will be cleaner before the Summer Olympic Games. However, it is the poor quality of China's human rights record that will probably send the Games elsewhere.

With the Olympics would come the eyes, ears and cameras of the world, and Falun Gong practitioners would, the Chinese know, do then what they are doing now: publicly perform the gentle exercises which so frighten President Jiang Zemin. They would hold up banners asking for an end to the persecution which has left 233 tortured to death. Millions of others have been beaten, tortured, raped, detained, harassed, and so on. Olympics cameras would record the truth as police beat the practitioners and dragged them away.

China's past actions against dissidents before international events, and China's memories of what happened to world opinion when cameras (meant for Gorbachov) recorded the anti-democracy massacre in Tiananmen Square, point to one conclusion: If the Games go to China, Beijing will give higher priority to silencing Falun Gong than to cleaning air. This must be as obvious to the IOC as it is to me.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) cannot afford any more black marks on its record, and sending the Olympics to China will surely involve increased violence by the Beijing government against innocent civilians.

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An American

July 2, 2001