China's Olympic organizers said Monday that they will not allow the 2008 Beijing Games to be turned into a sounding board for foreigners with a political agenda. But even as they spoke, foreign demonstrators demanded the release of political prisoners and unfurled a banner depicting the five Olympic rings as handcuffs.The protest, staged by the international press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, was a rare open expression of anti-government sentiment in the heart of the capital. Although it involved only a handful of people, it dramatized official concerns here that protests could cast a pall over what the country's political leaders intend to be a joyful coming-out party for modern China and its Communist Party government.
The warning Monday and the brief protest were both timed to the start of an elaborate one-year countdown of ceremony and civic events, scheduled to end with the Games' opening ceremonies on Aug. 8, 2008.
In recent days, international human rights groups have accused the government here of reneging on promises of press freedom and other rights that it made to gain the International Olympic Committee's approval to host the Games.
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