Beijing police receive anti-terrorism training for Olympics
(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-28 16:18 More than 40,000 police officers in China's
capital are being trained to handle potential terrorist attacks ahead of the
2008 Summer Olympics, Chinese government said Friday.
The officers began the two-year program on Thursday with a hostage rescue
demonstration, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Training this year will focus on improving physical strength while next
year's program will include simulated conditions, according to Zhao Yuan,
director of training at the Beijing Police College, where the sessions are being
held.
Trainees will also be required to learn foreign languages including English,
French, German and Arabic "to better deal with security tasks during the event,"
Yuan was cited as saying by Xinhua.
"To prevent and handle unexpected incidents that may happen during the
Olympic Games, we need a strong anti-terror force," Qiang Wei, Beijing's deputy
party secretary, was quoted as saying.
Unlike last summer's Games in Athens or the post-September 11 Winter Olympics
in Salt Lake City, Utah, security in Beijing is not as prominent a concern for
the international community.
Though no longer a totalitarian state, communist-run China remains an
authoritarian one, with an extensive security apparatus that can be quickly
mobilized.
Chinese security experts have said that they are looking into the potential
for domestic critics of the regime to disrupt the Olympics.
Their plans have focused on members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual
movement and ethnic Muslims agitating for an independent homeland in the western
region of Xinjiang, China's Central Asian buffer.
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