Olympic Games

In a year from now, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games will have started in Beijing, China. There are protests against the Chinese government in connection with the preparations, since China is a dictatorship. As far as I know, these Olympic Games are only the third where a dictatorship has been chosen as a host, the first being the summer games in Moscow in the Soviet Union in 1980, the second the winter games in Sarajevo in Yugoslavia in 1984. (The Games in Germany in 1936 were held in a dictatorship, but Germany was selected to host them before 1933, when it was still a democracy.) I cannot understand why a dictatorship was chosen, even though it is a country of many great athletes. Should sports be so separated from politics that it does not matter whether the second largest sports event (the first is the FIFA World Cup of Football) in the world is held in a dictatorship or a democracy? I think not. Besides, in China they slaughter dogs for food and fur, I consider that to be horrible and barbaric.