That'll teach you not to protest

The Telegraph has the story:

Two Chinese pensioners who applied for the right to demonstrate in the 'protest pens' at the Beijing Olympics have been sentenced to a one-year term of Re-education through Labour. The two women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, received the sentences after they lodged a request at Beijing's Security Administration Unit for permission to protest against being forcibly evicted from their homes in 2001. In the ten days since the Games opened not a single authorised protest has taken place, leading to mounting pressure on the International Olympic Committee to condemn China's refusal to live up to the Olympic ideals. Earlier this week the Chinese authorities admitted that 77 applications had been lodged but that 74 of these had been withdrawn because the complaints "were properly addressed by relevant authorities or departments through consultations" according to the Xinhua News state media. Of the remaining three, two were 'suspended' for technical reasons and the last was 'vetoed' by police for unspecified reasons, but most likely on grounds of national security. The two elderly women have been spared being sent directly to a labour camp, but will be allowed to serve the sentence outside a camp if they observe restrictions on their actions and movements, the report concluded... The Chinese authorities have refused to directly answer questions about the sentences allegedly handed down to the two women, despite at times angry questioning from international media at the Games... The IOC director of marketing, Timo Lumme, rejected the notion that the Chinese authorities were bringing the Olympics into disrepute. "My clients, the sponsors, and the broadcasters are happy with the positive view of the Olympic Games as being about sport and that the focus is quite rightly on that. We always knew that the Beijing games would open Olympianism to a quarter of mankind."

Rico says what else would you expect from the director of marketing, but that's really ignoring the problem...