April 15, 2008

Electronic relay spreads message over mobile networks, internet

TORONTO – While the official 2008 Olympic torch relay ducks to evade the scrutiny of human rights activists, an alternative human rights Olympic torch relay is set to journey across Canada en route to Beijing.

Play Fair 2008, an international campaign promoting human rights for workers producing Olympics-branded merchandise, tomorrow launches the Canadian leg of the Catch the Flame relay. The relay will focus the world’s attention on labour rights abuses in workplaces that make goods bearing the Olympic emblem and in sportswear factories around the world.

• Follow the torch relay: http://www.catchtheflame.org/

Participants in the campaign participate in the relay by receiving a Catch the Flame message via Bluetooth, SMS (text message), MMS (picture message) or email, which they relay on to their friends. People who receive the message visit the website and send protest messages to Olympic organizers.

“By joining this alternative torch relay, people around the world send a clear message that for the Olympics to be truly fair, sportswear companies need to play by the rules, too,” said Kevin Thomas of the Maquila Solidarity Network, one of the organizations coordinating the Catch the Flame relay. The Centre International de Solidarité Ouvrière (CISO), United Students Against Sweatshops and other Canadian organizations are involving their members in the relay.

With the 2008 Olympics, international scrutiny on human rights issues in China has swelled. Thus far, over 8,000 people have participated in the labour rights torch relay since it launched less than a month ago in the Netherlands.

“It is now time for the IOC to recognise that as the owner of a global brand, it has a duty to ensure that a uniform and robust approach is taken by host cities to ensure that those goods that they procure bearing the Olympics logo have been made in workplaces that meet the highest employment standards,” said International Textile, Leather and Garment Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) General Secretary Neil Kearney.