Today marks the two year countdown to the opening of the Beijing Olympics on August 8, 2008. China intends to use "the greatest show on earth" to showcase to the world a new, prosperous and confident China, intent on what its leaders have called a "peaceful rise" to unchallenged superpower status.

The extraordinary propaganda opportunity should not be allowed to disguise what is for many the less obvious underbelly of China: political authoritarianism; a ruthless and escalating censorship of the press and internet; appalling and ongoing human rights abuses, such as the removal and sale of organs from prisoners, and its 50 year-long brutal and illegal occupation of Tibet. Credible reports reveal that Beijing citizens being forcibly removed from their homes to clear space for Olympic stadia without adequate compensation whilst Olympic athletes would be appalled to hear that some of the stadia in which they will compete are regularly used as arenas for public executions.

Yael Weisz-Rind of Free Tibet Campaign said:

"In 2001 the IOC justified giving the Games to China on the basis that it would lead to an improvement in its human rights record and increased freedoms for the media. Yet with just two years to go before the Games, China has actually strengthened its censorship of the press, the sale of political prisoners' organs is conducted openly and with impunity and Tibetan monks and nuns are continued to be imprisoned and brutally tortured for nothing more than expressing their religious beliefs.

"Instead of lending a velvet glove to cover up China's iron fist of repression, the IOC should make a strong and public demand that China immediately releases its political prisoners in China and Tibet and stops imposing unrealistic preconditions to a sincere and substantive dialogue process on the future of Tibet."

Free Tibet Campaign and Tibet groups worldwide intend to use the increased media coverage of China in the two year run up to the Games to protest publicly that China's slogan for the Games, "One World, One Dream", represents a grotesque cover-up of ongoing repression, arbitrary detention and human rights violations in Tibet.