FREEDOM A LOSER AT OLYMPICS.

Byline: BRIDGET JOHNSON

Sun Lin, a reporter for the independent Boxun News Network, this spring covered growing conflicts in China between developers, their hired thugs and residents. Lin's reporting included the story of Li Shougui, a poor man whose home was destroyed and belongings stolen by demolition crews. "The 70-year-old man cried on the street; many neighbors were moved with tears in their eyes," Sun wrote. "Neighbors helped him find a small space nearby, but he was forced out and that small space was destroyed too."

The reporter for the banned news service wrote that Li tried to get help from Nanjing city officials but was told, "Why are you poor? It is because you do not have any ability, you are useless, no one will solve your problem."

Sun wrote the truth about China, not the sanitized image that China is desperately trying to project as athletes prepare to descend upon Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics. On May 30, Sun was beaten by police and arrested after he had written about China's refusal to issue Olympic press credentials to U.S.-based Boxun -- after the country had promised freedoms for foreign journalists -- and later was charged with weapons possession and heading a criminal gang, for which he could be executed.

"It is commonplace for pro-democracy activists to be the subject of completely trumped-up charges based on common-law crimes," Reporters Without Borders said. "The authorities are apparently trying to silence Sun Lin, who was working on sensitive subjects such as police brutality and cases of expropriation."

China should be assured that we do get the news of its continuous, egregious human-rights violations, along with receiving its dangerous and substandard pet food and kiddie toys. Human-rights and press-freedom organizations kicked off the yearlong run-up to the games with protests and demands that China clean up its act.

Though it's impossible to know exactly how many political prisoners languish in Chinese custody, press-freedom advocates count about 100 journalists, cyber-dissidents and free-speech activists known to be behind bars. Amnesty International reports that about 8,000 people were executed under China's secretive death-penalty process last year.

Unfortunately, many are counting on pressure from the International Olympic Committee, which bears blame for granting Beijing the games in the first place, to make China behave: "Despite challenges, we believe that the Beijing Olympic Games are a unique opportunity to open China up to the world," the IOC spun in a letter to Amnesty.

And while the protests are loud, the B-word -- boycott -- is seldom heard in the din.

"A boycott is a serious matter, and it hurts the athletes the most," Jacob Colker of the International Campaign for Tibet, which is attempting to draw attention to human-rights abuses before the Olympics, told me. "... A boycott also hurts the Chinese people, and they are not our target."

But what is the threshold where the world decides that participation is out of the question? America led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games to protest the invasion of Afghanistan. Like it or not, the Olympics are political, giving host nations -- from Hitler in 1936 to China 2008 -- a glorious global platform and hefty revenue surge.

The communist regime has no intention of releasing its grip on the Chinese people, acknowledging Tibetan sovereignty, or letting Taiwan go without a brutal fight. If there is any appeasement before the games, China will surely revert back to its standard operating procedures -- having reaped the nationalistic and financial windfall -- once the torch is snuffed and athletes have gone home.

Nothing will change for Sun Lin, Li Shougui, and the millions of others who suffer under the brutal Chinese regime.

"As negative exposure will damage the government's image, the government has been trying to 'clean' the voices," Boxun founder Watson Meng told me. "One of the concerns is that too (much) exposure will make the world boycott the games, but trying to crash down (on) press freedom makes the world angry, and triggers the boycotting."

If the Olympics are about international brotherhood, let's put real concern for our violated Chinese brothers and sisters before sports.

If the games showcase the greatest in individual strength and teamwork, then hopefully countries around the globe that value the indomitable human spirit will join together and take a stand for every individual's God-given rights and freedoms.