Olympics: Human rights will improve in China thanks to Games: IOC official

Former IOC director general Francois Carrard told the BBC that had the Games not been awarded to China - they beat off among other candidates the Canadian city of Toronto in 2001 - then there would be no chance of human rights evolving there as the spotlight would not have been focussed on them.

"If the Games were not awarded to China the (human rights) situation would not have progressed," the Swiss lawyer, who is now legal advisor to the IOC told the BBC.

"This is a contribution to progress, an accelerating factor."

China's human rights record has come under increasing scrutiny as the Games approach with their support of the Sudanese Government and the Myanmar military junta being criticised by not only human rights groups but also athletes.

China which is one the closest allies of the Sudanese government and its main arms supplier, has come under intense and sustained international criticism for not doing more to stop the years of civil conflict in Darfur.

Beijing insists it is playing a positive role in Sudan, and that activists are simply politicising the Olympics and seeking to ruin the event.

"The monitoring on China's human rights record has gone on ever since (Beijing was awarded the Games)," said Carrard.

"Human rights is an overwhelming concern for all IOC members.

"The issue of human rights is not satisfactory in many countries around the world today, not only in China.

"But I'm convinced that when we look at this with the perspective of history we will see that the Olympic Games will have been an opportunity for considerable progress.

"Whether we can judge this now, just before the Games, after the Games or well after the Games remains to be seen."

Carrard also said he believed Oscar winning film director Steven Spielberg was wrong to have withdrawn as an artistic advisor to the event, after the Hollywood legend accused China of not doing enough to pressure Sudan to end the "continuing human suffering" in the western Darfur region.

"I respect what Mr Spielberg says but, respectfully, I totally disagree with him," said Carrard.

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