Riding for Rights: David Kay Arrives in Vancouver

By Joan Delaney
Epoch Times Staff

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Steven Harper’s lack of presence at the Olympics ‘spoke volumes’

Nearing the end of his “Race for Rights” across Canada, David Kay was welcomed by Tibetan Canadians, Falun Gong practitioners and their supporters as he arrived at the Chinese consulate in Vancouver on Sunday.

A former Team Canada member and Pan American medalist, Kay began his journey at Mile Zero in St. John’s on July 13 and will finish it at Mile Zero in Victoria on August 24, covering 7,700 km in all.

A representative of the Canada Tibet Committee greets David Kay as he arrives at the Chinese consulate in Vancouver. (Ben Taylor/Epoch Times Staff)

Organized by the Canada Tibet Committee, the ride aims to raise public awareness of China’s human rights record and to call attention to the Chinese regime’s responsibility to improve rights as host of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Kay, who is traveling solo without a support vehicle, said the response has been “pretty incredible” in the cities and towns in which he stopped along the way.

In an interview with the Epoch Times, Kay said that through the journey he learned how concerned Canadians are about human rights in China and that “most Canadians feel China has not lived up to its promise of improving human rights and feel very ambivalent about the Olympics.”

He added that while he was a bit disappointed that Canadian athletes didn’t speak up about rights while in Beijing, he felt that on the whole “Canadians did make a pretty strong statement.”

“I think Steven Harper’s lack of presence there spoke volumes — he may not want to admit that but I think that’s how it’s being interpreted. It’s very much clear that Canada is ambivalent about the missed opportunity that this Olympics has let go and the lack of real active diplomacy that the IOC has not built to pressure China to keep its promise.”

He also said he thought that the International Olympics Committee and the Games’ corporate sponsors should have made an effort to hold China to account on the human rights front.

David Kay arriving in Vancouver. (Ben Taylor/Epoch Times Staff)

“I was disappointed with some of the real big corporate sponsors for not taking a harder line with the Chinese government when it came to human rights abuses, just like the IOC who had this silent diplomacy that amounted to reversal [for human rights].”

There are fears that in the wake of the Games, China’s human rights situation might even deteriorate further, he said.

“That’s my concern and the concern of a lot of human rights organizations are having right now…. A lot of security networks will be there after the Games are over, I mean in lot of ways the Olympics could be a step back for human rights which is remarkably bad for the Olympics as an institution, bad for the IOC.”

Each provincial leg of Kay's journey was dedicated to a victim of China’s human rights abuses.

In Ontario, he rode for Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen and member of the Muslim Uyghur community who has been sentenced to life imprisonment in China on terrorism charges.

The Alberta leg was dedicated to a Falun Gong practitioner who is currently serving a 12-year sentence for her spiritual belief, and the British Columbia leg to the Panchen Lama who disappeared with his family in 1995.

“The Panchen Lama was abducted by Chinese authorities when he was 6 he has been under house arrest for 13 years. The Chinese government doesn’t divulge any information about his whereabouts… It’s particularly hurtful for Tibetans to have someone of such special spiritual significance under Chinese control and Chinese brutality,” said Kay.

David Kay and some young Race for Rights supporters. Kay began his journey at Mile Zero in St. John’s on July 13 and will finish it at Mile Zero in Victoria on August 24, covering 7,700 km in all. (Ben Taylor/Epoch Times Staff)

Other victims include an unidentified Tibetan girl in Lhasa and two monks in Sichuan province recently killed by Chinese police; Huang Qi, a human rights website founder who was abducted in June reportedly as part of the Olympics security crackdown; and human rights activist Hu Jia who was convicted of “subversion” charges in April.