Athletes who take Tibet stand 'face Olympic cut'

Athletes who display Tibetan flags at Olympic venues — including in their own rooms — could be expelled from this summer’s Games in Beijing under anti-propaganda rules.

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said that competitors were free to express their political views but faced sanctions if they indulged in propaganda.
He accompanied those comments with an admission that the Games were in “crisis” after pro-Tibet protests engulfed the Olympic torch relay.
Mr Rogge’s call for Beijing to abide by its promise to address human rights was given short shrift by Beijing, which bluntly told him to keep politics out of the Games.

The question of what will constitute propaganda when the Games are on in August and what will be considered opinion under IOC rules is one vexing many in the Olympic movement. The Olympic Charter bans any kind of “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda” in any Olympic venue or area.
This includes the opening and closing ceremonies, the medal podiums and the Athletes’ Village.

The fact that the IOC has still not qualified the exact interpretation of “propaganda” means that some athletes remain confused about what they can say during the 16-day event without being sent home or stripped of a medal.

“There is a difference between propaganda and opinion and I would expect most of our athletes to know it. Wearing a Free Tibet T-shirt is going to be seen as propaganda. But if athletes are asked a direct question, there should be no problem in them answering it,” said Pete Gardner, the BAC’s chief executive. “We want the IOC to clarify that.”

Most athletes will have no interest in anything other than their sporting performance but some want to be free to make political statements.
A group of French athletes, led by the pole-vaulter Romain Mesnil, has asked the IOC to let them wear a badge calling “For a Better World”. He said: “As athletes, we have to display Olympic values and human values. We don’t want to be mere pawns.