What happened to peaceful protest?

Why is it that supporters of Free Tibet can't protest nonviolently? What ever happened to peace marches and hunger strikes? I can understand why Tibet wants to be independent, but I can't say that I agree with some of their methods for getting attention.

At the Olympic torch relay in Paris last week, Free Tibet protestors tried to take the torch from Jin Jing, a Chinese Paralympic fencer who lost a leg to cancer when she was nine years old. What were those people thinking?! This did not help their cause! In fact, it was the opposite of helpful!

[W]hen she was filmed protecting the torch from pro-Tibet protesters amid chaotic scenes in Paris, the one-legged athlete was hailed by Chinese internet users as an "angel in a wheelchair".

Chinese Communist propagandists could not have written a better scene to gather popular support. This one incident has probably wiped out a good deal of Tibetan and Western sentiment in China. And the Chinese media have been eating it up:

The one-legged fencer put her body on the line for her country. Jin tightly grasped the torch as hysterical protesters tried to snatch it during the Paris leg of the relay on April 7. The wild protesters beat her and one angry man pulled her hair.

Hello, protestors? Are you listening? Attacking and nearly injuring this woman did not help your cause. It just made you look like a bunch of criminals--you might as well have tried to steal her purse. Also, what kind of idiot attacks a human being as part of a human rights demonstration?

I really only have two points to make here. First, nonviolent protest is going to be more effective than attacking women and disabled people. Look how well Gandhi's movement worked. Those protestors ought to take a page out of his book. Second, Olympic protests have a long history of ineffectiveness. Protesting like this only hurts the athletes.

I'm not supportive of what China is doing in Tibet and Sudan, but I think there are better ways for people to demonstrate their feelings about the issue. I'm not going to stand behind any group that is willing to injure innocent bystanders to prove a point.