Fang Zhen didn't go to the Olympics

Untold stories are always the most interesting. Especially those that we are not supposed to know. From The Australian

The story Beijing doesn't want told
Peter Lalor | August 22, 2008 12:00am

THERE are always great stories of courage around the Olympics and Paralympics. Women with one leg, men shaking off the burden of tragedy, ordinary people defying the odds.

So, too, the story of a Chinese athletic champion pieced together from various website reports that you can access from the cheap seats but are almost certainly blocked in Beijing.

As a boy, Fang Zhen was so motivated by the inclusion of China back into the Olympic family at the Los Angeles Games in 1984 that he set his sights on studying at the Beijing Academy of Physical Science. He wanted to represent his country and went on to be a promising discus and javelin thrower.

Unfortunately that dream was shattered when both legs were amputated (one below and one above the knee) following a vehicle accident.

Fang was not totally discouraged and went on to represent Beijing in the third All-China Disabled Athletic Games in Guangzhou, winning two gold medals and breaking two records. However, he has not been able to compete again because of a government order.

Tracked down by a reporter recently, Fang said he would stay at his home in Hefei in Anhui province rather than travel to Beijing for these Games.

"I do not plan to come to Beijing for Olympics or Paralympics," Fang told The Independent newspaper. "As to what happened to me, it was many years ago. I am certainly very angry about it. These days I live a very ordinary life. I am just an ordinary civilian."

The reason Fang has not been allowed to compete is because the Chinese Government is worried he might tell the truth about his "traffic accident".

Fang, you see, got caught up in the Tiananmen Square protests. While fleeing soldiers, who were throwing hand grenades at the protestors, he paused to help a female student. In that moment, he became entangled with a tank which dragged him along and crushed his legs.

You can read a little of Fang's story in an open letter from two jailed Chinese human rights activists, Teng Biao and Hu Jia.

It's an interesting document which details some of those annoying little abuses and crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated to make sure these Games run smoothly.

The activist pair claim that in April, 2007, the Ministry for Public Security sent out an internal document barring "43 types of people" from 11 categories, including dissidents, the media and religious participants from participating in the Olympics.

Hu Jia, coincidentally, is another one of those heroic Olympic stories. No doubt you would have heard all about it, but the International Olympic Committee and the Beijing administrators have somehow overlooked the need to invite reporters to the prison where he is held.

The activist was sentenced to three-and-a-half years' jail in April this year for inciting subversion -- that is, he criticised the government by putting out documents like the open letter cited above.

Hu is married to Zeng Jinvan and the couple has a baby daughter. There is a picture of the Beijing family on the internet if you want a look. Zeng has detailed the stories of trying to visit her husband in prison on a blog site, which, strangely enough, has been shut down.

The young woman had been writing a blog for some time and last year was voted as one of Times Magazine's "100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world". The magazine said she was "Tiananmen 2.0".

That was enough for the cockroaches who run these Games to put her under house arrest in her Beijing flat around the time they jailed her husband.

Unfortunately none of the journalists who bothered to make the trip to her apartment before the Games was allowed past the goons and any who want to visit now are wasting their time.

Zeng and her baby disappeared on the eve of the Olympics and her family has been unable to contact her since. Her lawyer, Li Fangping, told the American network ABC that he believed she had been taken out of the city by public security officers until the end of the Games.

Li is so nervous at the increased scrutiny of his own life that he voluntarily left Beijing when the circus came to town.

Of course it would be churlish to criticise the Chinese for jailing political activists during the Games. As we all know sport and politics should never mix.

Governments that try to control information through censorship have a lot to hide.

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Today was a very lazy day. I did iron seven shirts, and fold a laundry, which had been piling for months. Okay, today was a less lazy day than usual.