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A UN-funded study by the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) found that from the 1988 games in Seoul to the Beijing Olympics of 2008, more than 2 million people have been displaced to make way for Olympic celebrations. These displacements disproportionately affect the poor and ethnic minorities, pushing people out of their homes and leaving behind high-cost real estate that most former residents cannot afford.
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The official Olympic charter leaves little room for dissent or protest, stating in its rules, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious, or racial propaganda is permitted in the Olympic areas.” Through a new law passed in time for the 2012 Olympics, 13,500 British troops, alongside more than 10,000 private-security personnel, were given the power to forcibly enter people’s homes and destroy or seize any material not sanctioned by the Olympics. A similar law in Vancouver rendered any material that did not celebrate the Olympics illegal and similarly granted police the right to seize such materials from people’s homes. A public outcry saw this law amended in Vancouver, but British Columbia officials—following the model set by Olympic host cities like Seoul, Atlanta, Sydney, and Athens—passed a law allowing police to forcibly transfer the homeless to shelters in the event of extreme weather (like winter), or jail them temporarily if shelters are full.
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Without a shred of irony, the London 2012 Olympics had BP Oil as its chief “sustainability partner,” a company with a questionable human rights record that is best known for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill that continues to threaten the region’s seafood industry. Next year’s “sustainability partner” is DOW Chemical, a company which for over a decade has refused to take responsibility for its gas leak, which killed 25,000 people.Profit and Debt
While the International Olympics Committee (IOC) generates massive profits ($383 million in 2008) from sponsorship deals and the sale of television rights, it leaves the residents of host cities to pay off enormous debts. The IOC host-city agreement stipulates that the Olympics, as a nonprofit organization, pay no taxes to host nations on money made during the Olympics. With the IOC left to self-audit, the salaries of IOC executives are unreported and nobody is certain where Olympic profits go.
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