While the death toll threatens to break even China's bloody records, Amnesty believes the real figure could be much higher, for national statistics on the death penalty are guarded as state secrets.
On their final morning, condemned prisoners are displayed at sports stadiums or public squares, held in leg irons with their heads forced low in shame. Several years ago, the potential Olympic football venue, Beijing's Workers Stadium, hosted such macabre events. In most other Chinese cities, invited audiences, often several thousand strong, are still required to watch the sentencing, and learn to obey the law and the government. At the end of the show, the prisoners are paraded in People's Liberation Army trucks, the tumbrels of the Chinese Communist Party, on the way to the firing squad.
"China has a long tradition of capital punishment," said Mr. Zhang, the lawyer. "While living standards and educational levels are still low, there is no way it can be abolished. It remains the ultimate deterrent. Like nuclear weapons, the death penalty shouldn't be used lightly, but it is powerful by its presence."
Berlin 1936
The 1936 Berlin games are remembered for their vulgar Nazi grandiosity and the way Hitler attempted to use them to establish Aryan superiority in athletics. Sprinter Jesse Owens, an American black man, denied him this one triumph in just about the only setback Hitler suffered that year. Hitler was trying to promote how great his dictatorship was which history discovered was a very bad idea. The 1936 Olympic Games were intentionally awarded to Germany so the republic could show that it had regained its status among European countries. With the Nazis in power, however, Adolf Hitler used the event as a platform to prove his theory of racial superiority
Athens 2004
The Money Wasted on the Olympics Should be spent on Human Need. The billions spent on Olympics are coming at the expense of public education, health, welfare, sporting facilities, and recreational space. The NSW Carr government, while giving SOCOG an additional $140m, has cut $133m from TAFE's funding, and cut 750 jobs.
Australia is now rated 17th lowest in funding public education among the 24 OECD countries. State schools are selling their playground space to finance construction and maintenance of class rooms. While Parklea Hospital is being funded to look after hyperventilating spectators, all other health services are being squeezed. 150 nurses' positions have been cut from Wollongong Hospital. Corporate sport gets billions; State teachers and health workers are forced to fight for spare change. The Federal
Budget, while throwing money at Olympic training, also announced additional harassment for the unemployed, as part of a plan cut thousands off the dole, and "save" over $200m/year. The money wasted on Olympic Games could be better spent elsewhere - on public space, education, welfare, housing.
Atlanta 1996
The Games marked the 100 anniversary of the modern Olympic movement. The Atlanta Games were the first to be held without any governmental support. This led to a commercialization of the Games that disappointed many. The American organization had so many problems that former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch called them "most exceptional," rather than the "best ever" designation other Olympics got. The Olympics are remembered also for their organizational problems, especially with transportation. Topping this, during the Games, a pipe bomb exploded in Atlanta's Centnnial Olympic Park killing two people and injuring a further 110. Although the incident was referred to as a terrorist bomb, the motive or group responsible was never determined. IOC officials were quick to announce that despite the bombing, the Games would proceed.