patience
07.04.08, 16:32
Do zdarzenia doszło w stolicy Francji, Paryżu, gdy sztafeta olimpijska biegła
z ogniem przez ulice miasta. Jak poinformowali przedstawiciele policji, ogień
"zgasł z przyczyn technicznych". Jak podano, w związku ze zdarzeniem został
zatrzymany jeden z paryskich radnych. Po kilkudziesięciu minutach sztafeta
została wznowiona.
wiadomosci.onet.pl/1725008,11,sensacja_zgasl_ogien_olimpijski_radny_paryza_zatrzymany,item.html
Despite massive security, at least two activists got within almost an arm's
length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. Officers tackled many
protesters and carried off some of them. A protester threw water at the torch
but failed to extinguish it and was also taken away.
At the start of the relay, a man identified as a Green Party activist was
grabbed by security officers as he headed for 1997 400-meter world champion
Stephane Diagana, the president of France's national athletics league, who was
carrying the torch from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. The man was
tackled before he got close to Diagana.
The procession continued but, soon after, a crowd of activists waving Tibetan
flags interrupted it for the first time by confronting the torchbearer on a
road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get close to
the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and brought on board
a bus to continue along the route.
Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a Paris traffic
tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by
activists who booed and chanted "Tibet." Once again, the torch was temporarily
extinguished and put on a bus despite protesters' apparent failure to get close.
Some 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and using
inline roller skates. Still, police barely stopped the second rush at the
torch, and the attempt to extinguish it with water. Other demonstrators scaled
the Eiffel Tower and hung a banner depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.
The torch was extinguished for the third time when police interrupted the
procession as a precaution because they spotted a crowd of demonstrators on a
bridge they were approaching.
Police said they did not immediately have a count of the number of arrests.
Mireille Ferri, a Green Party official, said she was held by police for two
hours because she approached the Eiffel Tower area with a fire extinguisher.
In various locations throughout the city, activists angry about China's human
rights record and repression Tibet carried Tibetan flags and waved signs
reading "the flame of shame."
Riot police squirted tear gas to break up a sit-in protest by about 300
pro-Tibet demonstrators who blocked the torch route.
France's former sports minister, Jean-Francois Lamour, said that though the
torch had been put out, the Olympic flame itself still burned in the lantern
where it is kept overnight and on airplane flights.
"The torch has been extinguished but the flame is still there," he told France
Info radio.
hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OLYMPIC_TORCH?SITE=NVREN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
