GLOBAL VOICE: A demonstration in downtown Paris on April 9 attracts nearly 10,000 overseas Chinese and students. They expressed support for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and anger at distorted reports about the Lhasa riots by some Western media

LIU YOU

Western media coverage of the Olympic torch disruptions and riots in Tibet has angered ordinary Chinese people.

Cable News Network (CNN) in the United States has come under particular criticism. Chinese people lambasted CNN for twice referring to the Tibet Autonomous Region as a country, and many were gravely insulted by the comments of Jack Cafferty on The Situation Room on April 9.

As the Olympic torch dodged protestors on the streets of San Francisco, Cafferty likened China to the Nazis, saying, "I think the hosting of the Olympic Games is a political act, and whether it was the Nazis in 1936 or the Chinese communists in 2008, they are all using it to promote their country."

He later added, "I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years."

On April 19, in the United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany and Austria, overseas Chinese rallied in support of the Beijing Olympics and condemned Western media bias in covering the Lhasa riots.

Thousands of Chinese Americans and overseas Chinese also rallied outside the CNN studios in downtown Los Angeles to protest the anti-Chinese remarks made by Cafferty.

The protestors crowded sidewalks, holding placards which read, "No Racial Discrimination," "CNN, Don't Fool Americans," "No Media Distortion" and "True Apology from CNN."

Singing patriotic Chinese songs and shouting "CNN Liar, Cafferty Fire," the demonstrators demanded a sincere apology from CNN and Cafferty, as well as his dismissal.

The same day, near 1,000 Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals working and studying in America gathered in Washington DC to protest against some Western media coverage and politicians' remarks about the riots in Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet.

The peaceful demonstration in Upper Senate Park, which lies across the street from the Capitol Hill, attracted people of all ages and from various professions who live or study in the Washington metropolitan area.

"American media, you can muzzle our voices, but cannot smother the truth," read one banner.

"We Chinese-Americans feel outraged by the biased Western media coverage of the Lhasa riots and Olympic torch relay, and I think it is time to have our voices heard, " Ma Xiping, one of the organizers of the event, told China's Xinhua News Agency.

"How can you say the Dalai Lama clique's violent attempts to sabotage the Beijing Olympics are ‘peaceful actions?' We must tell people the truth and stop media distortion," she said.

The demonstrators held some 50 placards with photos and data, which gave vivid examples of the Dalai Lama clique's violent actions against innocent people in Lhasa and Western media bias.

Hundreds of Chinese students in Japan signed their names on three flags to extend their support for the Beijing Olympic Games.

The campaign, initiated by the Chinese Students in Japan Friendship Association, plans to collect more than 10,000 signatures of Chinese students and scholars in Japan.

At the opening ceremony of the campaign held in the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Chinese students set up banners promoting the Beijing Games with slogans such as "One World, One Dream." The flags will be presented to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

Nearly 10,000 Chinese people living and studying in France held a peaceful demonstration in downtown Paris to express their support for the Beijing Olympics and their anger at "distorted reports" about the Lhasa riots in the French media.

The rally, starting from midday at the Place de la Republique Square, was the biggest ever staged by overseas Chinese in France in nearly 20 years, organizers said.

The demonstrators, dressed in red T-shirts with the slogan "The Olympic Games are a bridge, not a wall," waved both Chinese and French national flags and chanted patriotic songs.

In London, more than 3,000 Chinese people staged a silent demonstration in a square opposite the Westminster. They targeted the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), which had broadcast untrue reports about the Lhasa riots.

"Today, we are here to oppose the media's distortion and fabrication of recent events. We are here in a quest for objectivity, fairness and justice," a demonstration coordinator said.

"As we heard and saw, we say the BBC on some of the recent events has misled the British public and the rest of the world by providing intensive untruthful reports and biased coverage."

The rally was mobilized via the Internet and attracted people from all parts of Britain.

More than 2,000 Chinese studying or working in Manchester and neighboring cities in central Britain held a silent demonstration against media distortion in front of the BBC office building.

In an open letter to the BBC, the protestors said the BBC had adopted "double standards" and failed to provide credible and independent coverage of the Olympic torch relay and the Lhasa riots.

Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese people from all across Germany staged a peaceful demonstration in Berlin to protest against "biased news coverage" of the Lhasa riots and voice their support for the Beijing Olympics.

Nearly 3,000 people participated in the march, beginning at Berlin's famed downtown Friedrichstrasse railway station and ending at Potsdamer Platz, a landmark square in the capital city.

During the rally, the protesters sang patriotic songs and carried banners. Two banners read "Tibet was, is and will be a part of China" and "Boycotting Olympics = New Berlin Wall."

Around 1,500 overseas Chinese and students staged a peaceful demonstration in Vienna to show their support for the Olympics and their anger at the "Tibet independence" activist attacks on the Olympic torch relay.

The demonstration, titled "Overseas Chinese in Vienna Supporting Beijing Olympics Demonstration," was organized by 25 Chinese groups in Austria and local Chinese-language media organizations.