Earlier this month, protests and defiant displays erupted in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and elsewhere. The mainland authorities reacted by sending overseas journalists packing and closing off the region. Then Chinese soldiers filled the streets, and security personnel went door-to-door searching, arresting, beating and abusing. The outside world has little inkling how many Tibetans have died, suffered injuries or been arrested in the crackdown. We do know that the news and numbers reported in China’s state-controlled media bear little resemblance to reality.

China accuses the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, of ordering the public defiance and directing it from his refuge in India. The mainland media bleats that the Dalai Lama wants to disrupt and tarnish the Beijing Olympics, diluting the host nation’s anticipated glories.

True, the approaching Games look badly tainted, but the people inflicting the damage live in Beijing. It’s the Central Government’s heavy-handed response and furious rhetoric that scar the Games and spur talk of a boycott. There’s no glory in Beijing’s intolerance of free expression and denial of human rights. The authorities show the same attitude that led to the 1989 Beijing Massacre of student-protesters. What progress has China made?

One portion of the Beijing Olympics, the equestrian events, will take place in Hong Kong. No representative of Cairns Media Magazine will attend. Nor will this magazine provide sponsorship, buy related merchandise or otherwise participate. It's a boycott. Others should take the same attitude.

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