Contingency measures considered

BEIJING – The host city of the 2008 Summer Games is considering hospitalizing the mentally ill, relaxing restrictions on religious services and giving many businesses and factories a holiday as possible contingency measures during the Olympics.

The city office overseeing Olympic preparations discussed dozens of possible moves for the Games at an internal meeting Thursday, ranging from limits on the use of cars to banning the posting of handbills around the city.

Among the measures discussed, the newspaper said, were shutting down heavily polluting factories to clean up the air, giving most Beijing residents a 16-day holiday to alleviate traffic and allowing foreigners to worship in groups, which is officially outlawed – although the ban rarely is enforced.

A spokesman for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Environmental and Construction Headquarters Office, which conducted the meeting, confirmed the newspaper report but stressed no decisions have been made. “Everything is still under discussion,” said spokesman Zhou Jiawang.

In a report by the Beijing Morning Post, the newspaper said the city was considering hospitalizing all mentally ill people “to avoid creating any harm to society,” and expelling many of the city’s 1 million migrant workers.

Zhou denied such a wide-scale expulsion order was on the table. He said ordering out the migrants was proposed by one of the advisers at the meeting, but that the newspaper report was incorrect.

Beijing previously has enacted extraordinary measures to reduce the chances of protest or spruce up the grimy capital’s appearance. In 1993, during its failed bid for the 2000 Olympics, Beijing expelled beggars, forced the handicapped to stay at home and closed smokestack industries when IOC inspection teams visited.

Some of the contingency plans might face legal hurdles. While the city has the authority to shut down heavily polluting factories on days of high pollution, it does not have the power to do so for the sake of a major event, the newspaper said.

To deal with traffic, the city may limit cars to driving every other day, with license plates ending in odd numbers allowed on some days and those with even numbers on the others, the report said.