Should the Olympics be used to highlight political issues?

It is certainly true that sport engenders strong feelings among its enthusiasts, but does that mean that others should shy away from using the Olympics as a political platform? China’s hosting of the Games gives activists, inside and outside the Asian superpower, a rare opportunity to highlight a range of issues including Tibet, Darfur, Myanmar and, most recently, the mistreatment of the Muslim population in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

Sporting purists may argue that these issues have no place in sport. Justine Henin, the Belgian tennis ace who took the gold medal in Athens, is in this camp and said in February: “I am going [to Beijing] to play tennis, not play politics.”

Indeed, a case may be made for barring the press from dragging political comment out of athletes who are not comfortable on the subject. Competitors may justifiably issue pleas to be left alone to focus on competing, for fear of opening a Sharon Stone-style can of worms. Ms Stone famously referred to China’s earthquake as being karma for “bad things” done in the past.

But while hours of video footage streams from Beijing over the course of the Games, it is the perfect time for little-heard activists to illustrate their plight. Staging protests and disrupting Olympic events may be the only way to get their message across to the international community and they would be remiss if they did not seize the opportunity with vigour.

China’s Olympic organisers and their Communist Party have answered the various political criticisms made by activists along the torch route, by telling the international press that politics should be kept out of the Games. They are clearly ill-at-ease with the notion of defending themselves to a hostile press.

A nation of despots cannot expect to reap the prestige of hosting an international sporting event without a little political fallout. Clearly Chinese officials have been spoiled by a press that does not spoil their press.