From Reuters

EU should boycott Beijing Olympics over Myanmar

Thu Sep 27, 2007 9:03am EDT

By Darren Ennis

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union countries should boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics unless China intervenes in Myanmar, an EU lawmaker said on Thursday.

The vice president of the European Parliament Edward McMillan-Scott will write to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the EU's Portuguese presidency asking them to discuss whether athletes should oppose the Beijing games.

The British Conservative MEP is backed by the assembly's largest political group -- the centre-right European People's Party, which includes the government parties of France and Germany -- and the Liberal grouping within the EU legislature.

"The consensus around the European Parliament is that China is the key. China is the puppet master of Burma," McMillan-Scott told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The Olympics is the only real lever we have to make China act. The civilized world must seriously consider shunning China by using the Beijing Olympics to send the clear message that such abuses of human rights are not acceptable."

Graham Watson, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, said: "The EU must push for common action as a bloc or via the U.N. General Assembly on China and its Asian trade partners over Burma."

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