Utahns oppose Olympic torch protests

Utahns strongly oppose the protests being held along the Olympic torch relay route for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing and don't want President Bush to boycott the Olympic opening ceremonies in August, according to a new poll.

Sixty-eight percent of Utahns surveyed for the Deseret News and KSL-TV said they disagree with using the Olympic torch relay for protests. And even more, 70 percent, say U.S. leaders should not boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

The poll of 404 Utahns statewide, conducted April 21-24 by Dan Jones & Associates, has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.

Utahns responded the way they did because they remember their own experience hosting the 2002 Winter Games, said Mark Walker, who was the spokesman for the Olympic torch relay that brought the flame lit in ancient Olympia, Greece across the country to Salt Lake City.

"We had to get through some tough times, and we did," Walker said, recalling the early scandal surrounding Salt Lake City's Olympics and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States that preceded them.

In 2002, the Olympic flame brought together not just Utahns but the world, said Walker, now a spokesman for EnergySolutions Inc.

"I witnessed, all the time, the uniting that torch relay did," he said. "For a moment, that flame united a lot of people. You could set your political differences aside. We never had a protest and we prepared for them."

China's Olympics, though, are a very different story.

Demonstrations against China's human rights record in Tibet and other places have disrupted the international leg of the torch relay. That included the flame's stop in San Francisco earlier this month, as well as in Paris and London.

Runners also dashed past sporadic protests early today as they carried the Olympic torch through Nagano's streets, which were lined by thousands of riot police and closely monitored by helicopters overhead.

Japanese officials said the security was unavoidable, and called for calm. But the high-profile police presence dissipated any festive mood in Nagano, which hosted the 1998 Winter Games.

The protests have been fueled by China's deadly efforts to stem recent uprisings in Tibet by Buddhist monks and others seeking greater autonomy. An estimated 100 monks were killed and hundreds more reportedly detained.

Leaders of several nations, including France, have said they're considering protesting the Chinese government's actions in Tibet by not attending the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. President Bush has said he'll be at the opening ceremonies.