(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-05-04 17:50

Along with the 2008 Beijing Olympic Torch Relay, a group called Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) (Reporters without Borders) caught much world attention.

When the torch-lighting ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games was held at the site of ancient Olympia in Greece on March 24, three men broke away from the cordon to unfurl a flag which showed handcuffs in the form of Olympic rings. In the meantime another man rose from the VIP seat and showed a black banner. They were members of the Paris-based RSF, which is headed by the man in the VIP seat named Robert Menard, the group's secretary-general.

That scenario was the beginning of the destructive campaign staged by the group against the Olympic torch relay in London, Paris and other cities.

On April 7, the Olympic flame had to be extinguished several times during the Paris leg of its relay due to the impudent activities by Tibetan separatist protestors and RSF members. They also reportedly climbed onto the Eiffel Tower to display a banner with the aforementioned "handcuffs".

During the Nagano leg of the torch relay on April 26, RSF members appeared among Japanese right wingers and nationalists. They together put on a despicable performance by throwing articles at the Olympic flame and torchbearers.

People wonder why "Reporters without Borders", a self-clamed protector of journalists and the free press, so passionately wreck the Olympic torch relay in a barbaric manner. Does the group really work for press media, or pursue genuine free press? What they're doing has no connection with free press. What they did also makes people wonder if the group is an Olympics protestor or a political accessory of anti-China forces.

Obviously RSF orchestrated these hostile movements against the Beijing Olympics, according to what they have done during the torch relay of the Beijing Olympic Games.

According to the information uncovered by French newspaper Le Figaro, RSF collaborated with American right-wing political groups to put pressure on those enterprises from the US, Germany and Switzerland to prevent Beijing from winning the Olympic bid in 2001.

As a French journalist disclosed in his book, RSF always spares no effort to do whatever their sponsors tell them to do in order to get the funds they need. Trying to ruin the Beijing Olympics is just one of their methods to seek more money.

RSF is not a press agency but a money-seeking machine since they threw their basic ethical principles away. Ironically RSF claims it has obligations to protect journalists and the free press.

Tibet separatists and RSF came together to destroy the torch relay shamefully to politicize the Olympics and go against the Chinese people's wishes.

There's no doubt RSF was sponsored by stubborn anti-Chinese agencies to defame China and the Beijing Olympics. One thing for sure is that RSF will not last long once the truth comes out in the wash and it loses its dirty funds.