From Saturday's Globe and Mail

March 14, 2008 at 8:04 PM EDT

As host country for the 2008 Olympic summer games, China is understandably anxious about foreign perceptions of the country. This concern is behind its cull of house cats, razing of slums and efforts to improve air quality in Beijing. But its more immediate concern has to be its shameful human rights record. With the Olympic Games only a few months away, the carefully constructed artifice of internal harmony has come crashing down as its security forces in Tibet give the world a reminder of the sad truth.

Despite efforts by China to clamp down on events in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, where protesters took to the streets to defy China's occupation, eyewitnesses are providing accounts of violent repression, of monks being beaten, of Tibetans being shot near the Ramoche Monastery, and of large-scale movements of uniformed Red Army troops. China's functionaries responded entirely predictably to the challenge to their rule, blaming the Dalai Lama and his adherents of “masterminding” the uprising. The Dalai Lama, however, had issued a statement exhorting his followers not to resort to violence. The Nobel Peace Prize recipient has long sought dialogue with Beijing. Is this really the best that China's propagandists can do?

China's hypersensitivity to foreign attitudes toward its occupation of Tibet is well known. The country threatens grave economic consequences when foreign leaders meet with the Dalai Lama, and even moved to censor foreign performers after Björk shouted “Tibet! Tibet!” after her song Declare Independence at a recent concert in Shanghai. Officials complained that Björk “broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings.”

The Beijing Olympic Games motto is inspiring: “One world one dream.” The human tragedy of the last days and hours and the cultural tragedy of the last five decades in Tibet serves to remind us all just how elusive is the dream for the Tibetans, and indeed for the people of China itself. Tibetans' fight to preserve their culture, and their faith, should be remembered by the throngs of sports enthusiasts when they come to Beijing. Some might even be inspired by Björk's example. Independence may be out of reach, but a call for justice and human rights is no insult to China.