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

Human rights will improve in China thanks to the Olympic Games being hosted there this year claimed a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) official on Tuesday. 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." Beijing insists it is playing a positive role in Sudan, and that activists are simply politicising the Olympics and seeking to ruin the event.

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