Whilst lining the pavement on Bloomsbury Street to watch the Olympic Flame pass by. I was very aware from watching the first 90 minutes of coverage on BBC News 24 that there were protesters in the area, so I was on my guard for any unexpected events – I didn’t want a fire extinguisher going off in my face! In an absolute stroke of luck, I lined up this shot:
About one minute after this photograph was taken, the flame came into shot. Security was tight, quite understandably. The two torches were at this same spot, flanked by the Chinese guards and an outer ring of Police. The security for the torches were very good at making sure we had a good view. I had the perfect shot lined up, I was so pleased and actually for a moment felt so humbly lucky to have such a clear photographic shot ready. This was completely blown out of the water by the small group of protesters who insisted on running behind the crowds on the street shouting racist abuse at the Chinese contingent, and calling them murderers.
The manner of the protesters caused everyone flanking the street to be on edge, and the Police to tighten their ranks a bit. Yes, we know what is going on in Tibet. Yes, we know that there are numerous calls for boycotting the Olympics in Beijing this year, but do we really need this level of abuse at the torch relay?
I was fortunate enough to see countless numbers of Free Tibet protesters who were peaceful, with flags, balloons and many, many signs as well as their own information about what is going on in Tibet. I learned much by interacting with these protesters, who were there to spread their message, than the threatening and abusive language from the Caucasian protesters. I feel ashamed on behalf of my country. The group which caused the disturbance may have been small, but it doesn’t take many people to give a country a bad name.
This is the only photograph of the flame I managed. Protestors, you spoilt it for me.
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