As 17 International Olympic Committee inspectors tour Beijing, news that a Chinese woman had been sent to a labour camp for urging the IOC to press for the release of dissidents, has again focused attention on China's human rights.

Keen to impress the inspectors, Beijing's Olympic bid committee pledged the capital would spend $20 billion on highways, subway lines and the Olympic Park.

"It will be one of the largest construction projects ever in China since the construction of the Great Wall, which dates back some 2,000 years," Xinhua news agency reported.

What the city fathers forgot to add is that their laws also seem to be as ancient as the wall. Trotting out the old cliche of keeping politics out of sport, a police official at a detention centre near the eastern city of Hangzhou, said the woman was punished for "disturbing social order", adding: "We have already informed her family of the details of the re-education through labour sentence." The IOC will be licking their lips.