Fifteen percent of the polled say they believe the Olympics will help improve the human rights observance in China, while 7 percent say the situation will, on the contrary, worsen after the Olympics. The poll also shows that the Czech public has a quite positive stance on the Olympics in Beijing. Though none of My Games ...
Bulgaria withdraws lifting team ... the supreme Czech representatives will attend the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday, 43 percent of the polled agree with the participation of top Czech politicians in the Olympic opening, while 37 percent are against it, the poll shows. President Vaclav Klaus Klaus will not go to the games because he is convalescing from a hip joint operation he underwent in early June. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek will not attend the opening ceremony, but he will visit the games later.
His journey will have a rather private character, he said. On the contrary, the May poll by the NMS agency showed that about a half of Czech citizens agree with the politicians' decision to boycott the Olympics in China over human rights violation. At the same time, over four-fifths of these people said they would go to the Olympics in Beijing if they received a free ticket. According to the Factum Invenio poll, university graduates agree with the politicians going to the Olympics more often than people with lower education. One-fourth of supporters of politicians' presence in Beijing argue that they would represent the Czech Republic, and 18 percent mention support for Czech athletes as the major argument. The most frequently cited reason why Czech politicians should not go to Beijing was high costs. Almost one-third of people who disagree with politicians' participation in Beijing Olympics consider the journey a waste of money. A total of 27 percent say politicians should care for politics and not for sports and games, and 24 percent, mainly university graduates, cited their disagreement with Chinese politics as the reason, according to the Factum Invenio poll carried out on July 18-23, 2008 on 978 Czech citizens over 15.
(Ceske Noviny)
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