A smile is the best calling card for Beijing. Right?

“A smile is the best calling card for Beijing”. Printed on blue bracelets with the Olympic and Paralympic Games logos, this motto was coined to encourage Beijing volunteers to smile and promote the Olympic spirit.

Half a million volunteers will wear them in Beijing and other Olympic venues. Of them, 100,000, chosen from more than a million people who applied, including 22,000 foreigners, will be Olympic volunteers: 70,000 for the Olympic Games in August and 30,000 for September’s Paralympics. Another 400,000 city volunteers took up their posts beginning July at 500 information stands around Beijing, providing information and translation services for visitors.

With less than a month to the opening ceremony, civil society warns there are few reasons to smile. Here’s why:

The human rights challenge

When China won the right to host the 2008 Olympics, it was due in good part to human rights pledges. These included a specific commitment of “complete freedom” to report for the global media. But According to Minky Worden, media director of Human Rights Watch and editor of the new book China’s Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenger, China is loosing the human rights race.

– Read Human Rights Watch’s report on Olympic media freedom commitments violations

The “Ekecheiria”

“The preparations for the Olympic Games has produced fewer breakthroughs and more divisions in China’s human rights issue” says Amnesty. Nonetheless, the human rights organisation has chosen to end its Chinese rights campaign a day before the start of the Olympic games.

– Read an interview with Paolo Pobbiati, president of Amnesty’s Italian division

– Read an interview with Mark Allison, Amnesty’s East Asia Researcher

The environmental challenge

The environmental symbol of Beijing Olympics is a tree crown and the shape of a human being to create the form of a large tree reaching the sky. But the stench of the algae in the city of Qingdao, which will host the Olympic sailing events, is a vivid reminder that environmental concerns still dog the Games.

– Read Planet Ark’s report on the green actions the city of 15 million people and 3 million cars has announced

Find out more

– On the blogosphere

– Clean Clothes Campaign

– Play Fair 2008