How much is a single human life worth? A billion dollars or maybe as high as two trillion? No one can really put a price on a human life.

If no one can put a price on one human life, what is the price of thousands of lives?

I personally don’t know the answer, but apparently Beijing does.

They will host the 2008 Olympics despite being criticized for countless human rights issues.

The Olympic committee didn’t see human rights violations as a significant reason to deny Beijing the Olympics in 2008.

China lobbied very hard to host the Olympics in 2008 and take pride in their country, but at what cost must the rest of the world pay by looking away?

In June, Amnesty International issued a report which stated China has executed more people in the last three months than the rest of the world has in the last three years.

More than 1,700 people were executed and at least 2,960 sentenced to death. The Chinese government believes it’s their business and the rest of the world needs to stop interfering, but the report claims these numbers are only a small fraction of the executions carried out (the Chinese government doesn’t make all records public.)

People are expected to believe there were 4,741 crimes committed in the last three months which were severe enough to incur the death penalty. It seems very unreasonable for this to occur.

Tax fraud is just one crime severe enough to be put death in China, according to the Amnesty International report. Others include pimping, bribery, embezzlement, and many more, including violent crimes.

Some countries have the death penalty, but by anyone’s standards this is an excessive use of the death penalty.

In Europe, most people don’t consider the death penalty a question because it isn’t excepted. To become a member of the European Union, it’s even a requirement that the country has abolished the death penalty.

The United States, however, still has heated debate over the death penalty, but most people wouldn’t consider this a proper use.

Not only has China been excessively using the death penalty, they are turning it into a public sporting event.

Does this really deter crime?

There have been reports of prisoners in China being paraded through the streets on their way to the firing squad.

The Chinese government still believes it’s their business if they choose to shoot everyone in their country, but can the rest of the world just stand by and let that happen?

China is unlike any other country.

While it has its own customs and beliefs, there should be basic human rights that apply to everyone, no matter the country they reside in.

The Olympics should be earned by a country, and it’s obvious cleaning up the human rights issues would be a way for China to earn the games. To give them the Olympics with the hope that they will stop these human rights violations is called appeasement.

Hopefully this turns out better than the time in history when a German leader invaded a country, while the rest of the world stood by and said it’s okay as long as you stop here (appeasement). This started World War II.

Don’t misunderstand this statement. I don’t believe this is going to start World War III, but there is no logical reason for any of this to stop in the country of China.

Before the games were announced, the rest of the world had leverage because everyone knew China wanted to host the Olympics, but it was not used to their advantage to help clean up these issues.

China has no reason to worry about the human rights issues. The consequences are not severe enough, but maybe China will end their human rights violations because they believe it to be unjust.

All people can do is hope.

Whether or not a person believes in the death penalty, these actions by China should be watched with a very close eye between now and the 2008 games.

There are many good things that come out of China, but in the year 2001 this one negative should have been enough to deny the Olympics to Beijing.

David Frost is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines.