OLYMPIC OPENING EVENT:GREEN PARTY delegates voted overwhelmingly for a boycott by Government representatives of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics this summer.
During an emergency debate yesterday the convention endorsed a motion by Martin Hogan of Dublin South-East recommending that no Irish political representatives should attend the ceremony.
Mr Hogan said he really wanted "a lot more of a response than a simple call for a boycott, but it's a start".
He said the governments of Germany and eastern Europe - Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Latvia - who had experienced "what it is to have an occupying army", had criticised the Chinese government for suppression in Tibet. "It is fitting that Ireland, with its own history of an occupying army, should also speak out."
Just a handful of delegates backed the party's spokesman for sport, Paul Gogarty, who opposed the motion.
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