Jim Seida / NBC News

Syrians gather in London's Trafalgar Square on Thursday to protest the Assad regime.

LONDON -- As the Olympic torch made its way into London's famous Trafalgar Square, Ammar Masarani stood wrapped in the flag of the Syrian uprising against the murderous regime of President Bashar Assad among a crowd of about 50 other dissidents.

They had waited for almost two hours this moment to highlight the slaughter of more than 10,000 of their countrymen. As the torch went by, they waved their flags, but remained largely silent in order, Masarani said, "to stay within the rules." 

"Most people don't know what's going on in Syria with the Assad regime, so we are out here to raise awareness," Masarani told NBCNews.com. "I'm from Homs, he [Assad] has destroyed most of my city. He's destroyed most of the cities, Homs, Daraa, Hama.  He destroyed them and now he's starting in Damascus and Aleppo."

Given the scale of the problems in Syria, Thursday night's flag-waving demonstration might be a small gesture. However, it is the kind of protest that the Olympic organizers seek to avoid, insisting firmly that sports and politics should not mix and that the high ideals of "Olympism" must not be sullied by partisan campaigns.

More coverage of the Syria conflict

But experts who spoke to NBCNews.com accused the International Olympic Committee of picking and choosing what to regard as political while spinning the "fairy tale" of neutrality, suggesting it was time for the movement to acknowledge reality.

The present IOC's badly handled refusal of the request for a minute's silence for the victims of the Munich massacre at Friday's Opening Ceremony is perhaps case in point. Since the 1972 Games, the Olympics has done little to formally commemorate the dead, and relatives and Israeli officials had hoped the 40th anniversary would provide an appropriate opportunity.

Slideshow: Athletes killed at 1972 Munich Olympics

Keystone / Getty Images

Eleven Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by Palestinian gunmen during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

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Instead, IOC President Jacques Rogge and several leading figures in the U.K. held a minute's silence in the Olympic Village on Monday at short notice and without publicizing what they were doing -- after what Rogge described as a "spontaneous suggestion" -- but that only seemed to add insult to injury.

Daniel Taub, Israel’s ambassador to the U.K., told NBCNews.com that the Munich massacre was "beyond politics." The Embassy was holding its own minute's silence Friday, after a last-ditch plea to Rogge by the widows of two of the hostages fell on deaf ears.

"We’re talking about the darkest moment of Olympic history," Taub said.

Toby Melville / Reuters

Sebastian Coe (left), chairman of the London Olympic organising committee, and other officials mark a minute's silence at a ceremony in the Olympic Park in East London on Monday. President of the International Olympic Commission, Jacques Rogge paid tribute to the 11 Israeli team members who were killed at the 1972 Munich Games at a ceremony at the Athletes Village in London on Monday.

“An attack on the Olympic ideals of peace and harmony through friendship and solidarity really requires remembering publicly within the Olympic framework. I would say that’s not politics, it’s humanity. The fear is that a failure to do that becomes political," he said.

“I would say in a very real way the people calling for a remembrance are really standing up for the true ideals of the Olympic Games, not trying to betray them," he added.

Taub said Israelis were puzzled that “something that seems to be such a clear violation of Olympic ideals doesn’t seem to be deserving of commemoration.”

Ilana Romano, widow of Yossef Romano, an Olympic boxer killed in 1972, returned to Israel Thursday from England where she made a personal plea to the IOC to relent. She told NBCNews.com that she hoped spectators would stay silent and the media would turn off their microphones for a minute while Rogge speaks at the Opening Ceremony.

'Pandora's Box'
Jules Boykoff, a former U.S. soccer player and an associate professor in Pacific University’s department of politics and government, said the IOC should recognize they are involved in politics and consider setting up a committee or some other formal way of dealing with such issues.

Boykoff, who is in London researching a book about the Games, said this would open "a kind of Pandora’s Box in terms of the issues they might have to deal with,” but scorned the claim that the Olympics is apolitical.

“The idea that sports and politics don’t mix is a fairy tale that the IOC tells itself to help it sleep better," he said. “It’s obviously thrumming with politics at every level.”

He said an Olympic political commitee might get decisions wrong, but at least people would know “here’s where we [the IOC] are coming from."

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There are suggestions that at least some political issues are decided in secret, for example when planning where to put different nations -- perhaps arch-rivals such as Israel and Iran -- in the Olympic Village. (On Monday, Iran announced that its athletes would compete against Israelis in London. The country faced criticism after some competitors withdrew from events against Israelis at the 2004 Athens Games and 2008 Beijing Games.)

"Politics is taken into account when choosing who goes where, but that's based on guidance at International Olympic Committee level, not by [organizers of] London 2012, and it's agreed by each country in advance -- they know who their neighbors are going to be," a senior official involved in operations told NBCNews.com.

"It's about making sure athletes are comfortable in their living space rather than which countries don't get on," the source said. "Even then, it's a not really an issue. You've got to remember that these guys compete alongside each other all the time and all over the world --they know each other, some of them are best man at the other's wedding and so on." 

However, London 2012 organizers LOCOG denied international diplomacy played any role in the allocation of areas in the athletes' village, saying in an emailed statement "political issues are not a factor."

The Olympic movement does sometimes make open forays outside the world of sport. The Olympic truce, for example, calls for fighting around the world to stop for the duration of the Games.

But, in case anyone was thinking this might offer hope for countries like Syria, Boykoff was scathing. This "really nice idea" was "sort of a farce," he said. "Battles are going to continue across the world, they are not going to stop for the games, as popular as it is."

Flag flaps
Apart from the flag of the Syrian opposition, other flags have been already been causing political controversy at London 2012.

The Games actually began Wednesday with several soccer matches, one involving the North Korean and Colombian women's teams.

North Korea came out to train in Glasgow's Hampden Park stadium, but then walked off the field and refused to return after the South Korean flag was mistakenly used by officials. The game eventually did take place about an hour later with the North Koreans winning 2-0.

On Friday, it emerged that Taiwan's flag had been removed from among a host of others on London's Regent Street over concerns that China would be offended. Taiwan, which China views as a breakaway province, uses the flag of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee at the Games, after the IOC ruled it could not use its own flag in the early 1980s.

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And a marathon runner from new nation South Sudan, Guor Marial, will compete under the Olympic flag, after he understandably turned down the chance to run for Sudan -- which fought a decades-long civil war with the South that ended in the latter's independence. He was unable to run for his own country because it has not yet become a member of the Olympic movement.

But apart from Marial, everyone else will be competing for their country and Alan Bairner, professor of sport and social theory at the U.K.'s Loughborough University and author of a book, "The Politics of the Olympics," said the Opening Ceremony would be "replete with the politics of nationalism."

This runs contrary to the initial desire of the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, for athletes to compete as individuals rather than in state teams to avoid overly nationalistic sentiment.

“They talk about the world coming together, but the world comes together with national flags and anthems," Bairner said. "Events at Hampden Park … clearly demonstrated the significance of flags and emblems at supposedly apolitical events –  particularly if the organizers don’t get it right."

Bairner said only flags of competing nations were allowed to be flown at Olympic events and questioned what would happen if the flag of Scotland – part of the United Kingdom – was flown or given to a successful Scottish athlete as they celebrate.

 Scotland has also been racked with concern over the entry of a Team Great Britain in the soccer event. Despite being one country, the U.K. has four international soccer teams -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- and other countries have questioned whether this is fair. The fear in Scotland particularly was that a Team GB would set a precedent that would lead to the demise of the Scottish national team.

Bairner, a Scot, said the idea was almost unthinkable. "I can't imagine life without Scottish teams in these competitions [the World Cup, European Championships etc]," he said. "For it just to become Team GB, I would lose interest and support Spain or Germany."

He suggested the loss of the Scottish soccer team would provide a "boost" for supporters of independence from the U.K. ahead of a referendum on the issue in 2014.

Millionaire medalists: Will London 2012 remain true to Olympic spirit?

Bairner said the IOC tended to pick and choose what they deemed to be political.

It was possible, he said, that the IOC thought a Munich commemoration at the Opening Ceremony would be viewed as “pro-Israel.”

But he suggested it was “just about remembering people who died at an Olympic Games,” and said he thought most people would be "comfortable" with the idea.

Bairner, who said his sympathies tended to be with the Palestinians, said it was difficult to see how anyone could “object too strongly because they would almost be condoning that kind of activity,” and suggest that Olympic athletes were “legitimate targets.”

British weather could impact Olympic records

The ad hoc approach to political issues has been going on for years.

A few months before the Beijing Games of 2008, Rogge declared firmly that it was a "sporting, not a political, association," as he dismissed the effect of the resignation of filmmaker Steven Spielberg as artistic consultant over China's support for Sudan amid the Darfur conflict.

And in 1936, Avery Brundage, then head of the American Olympic movement and later an IOC president, opposed a boycott of that year's Berlin Games in Nazi Germany for the same reason.

The IOC’s decision to go ahead with the 1936 Munich Games -- awarded before the Nazis came to power partly to help shore up Germany's ailing democracy -- had handed Adolf Hitler a "huge propaganda victory,” Bairner said.

“You compare that with 1968 when [athletes] Tommie Smith and John Carlos do the Black Power salute. They are punished by the IOC for bringing politics into sport," he said, in perhaps an indication of what might happen to any Syria athletes trying to draw attention to the ongoing bloodshed in their country.

AFP - Getty Images, file

U.S. athletes Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right) raise their gloved fists in the Black Power salute after receiving their Olympic medals on Oct. 17, 1968.

The treatment of Smith and Carlos likely gives an indication of what might happen to any Syrian athletes who attempt to use the Games to protest the killings in their country.

“It seems they [the IOC] decide what is political at any given time … what they approve of and don't approve of. That’s when they become quite a slippery organization," Bairner said.

NBCNews.com submitted requests for comment from the IOC about the issues raised in this article on Wednesday and Thursday.

Media relations manager Sandrine Tonge said a response would be provided "as soon as we can."

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Fareed Khan / AP, file

Protesters burn a U.S. flag during an anti-American rally in Karachi, Pakistan, on Sept. 28, 2011.

KARACHI, Pakistan – They call it Pakistan's melting pot. Karachi, estimated to be home to over 18 million people, is the Islamic Republic's largest and perhaps most cosmopolitan city. Skyscrapers stand next to paramilitary barracks and slums encroach upon semi-constructed expressways, as mosques unite neighborhoods and golf courses divide other communities in this sprawling metropolis which is complicated by militant-run enclaves as well as women-owned banks.

But if anti-Americanism is rife in Pakistan, which currently faces the lowest point of its fractious relationship with the United States, then it is manifested, physically, almost every week in Karachi – more so than in any other city in Pakistan. After the weekly afternoon prayers on Friday, different hardline religious groups, many with political affiliations and some with militant ties, organize protest rallies with clockwork precision that range from a few hundred to throngs of thousands. But many rallies end in the same way: the burning of an American flag.

The points of contention with the United States may differ: the CIA contractor who shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city; the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound by Navy SEALs in suburban Abbotabad; the mistaken yet fatal attack on a Pakistani military checkpoint in the volatile northwestern Federally Administered Tribal Areas by NATO/ISAF forces; or the now almost weekly drone strike.

The man who dominates much of the supply chain of American flags to religious groups, 30-year-old Mamoon-ur-Rasheed – who's been publishing anti-American placards and hand-made stars and stripes since his school days, when he was angered by the Clinton administration's sanctions on Pakistan following its nuclear weapons testing in 1998 – is now remarkably dispassionate about his services, as well as about the short shelf-life of his flammable goods.

"We work hard for our product, and we get paid for our product," says Rasheed, clad in a camouflage baseball cap and seated behind a desk that takes up most of the space in his eight-by-six-foot office in Gulashan-e-Iqbal, one of the city's oldest working class neighborhood.

"So what if it burns? The purpose of the flag is to last for an hour. It's unfortunate, but if the demand is for an hour, then the supplier must meet such demand too," he says.

Click here for more Pakistan coverage from NBCNews.com

'If things get better, we will suffer'
The front entrance to the five-story plaza where Rasheed maintains his office and workshop is strewn with litter – and serves as a lair for stray cats that seem to co-exist with the prize roosters raised by local residents. Once inside the hallway, my cellphone's flashlight comes in handy as there is no power (Pakistan has been experiencing acute energy shortages for several years, which have now resulted in hours-long electricity blackouts, mainly depriving households and small businesses across the country).

Most of the shops' entrances have been shuttered down, either because of the power outages or the receding economy, or the linkage between the two. But Rasheed's shop is well lit, with a small generator rattling to make him and his business independent and functional. There is no sign, except for a massive, hand-painted verse from the Quran sitting atop frosted-glass doors: "What Allah willed, had occurred. There is no power except in Allah".

Waj Khan / NBC News

Mamoon-ur-Rasheed has been publishing anti-American placards and hand-made stars and stripes since his school days. The Israeli flag is another top-seller.

His team is small: a painter, a graphic designer, and an all-purpose errand boy helping everyone along and serving us lukewarm Mountain Dew. Rasheed's cellphone keeps ringing. Clients request orders. He's not just a flag maker. He has expanded into banners, billboards, shields, trophies and even motorized floats. But like any ambitious entrepreneur, he uses his networks to propel sales forward.

"I started as a student. Protesting and printing went side-by-side for me. My networks with political organizations helped. And they will probably continue to help," he says.

As a manufacturer who claims to be doing better than last year because he has diversified, Rasheed keeps an eye out for the drivers of his popular flags' demand as well as keeping checks on potential sales busters.

"Raymond Davis [the CIA contractor], Osama, Salala [the military checkpost attack], NATO ban [by the Pakistani government on NATO's ground supply routes that run through Pakistan], drones ... there will be yet another issue with America, and yet another spike in demand," says Rasheed, listing the recent crises between Pakistan and the United States.

"If things get better, we will suffer. Honestly. A quarter of my business is based on these tensions. ... But only a quarter."

Afghan war, Denmark cartoon furor 'good for us'
Even as the tense bilateral ties between Islamabad and Washington are dependent on a slow thaw between the two countries, Rasheed says that the glory days of flag burning belong to another era.

"The American attack on Afghanistan after 9/11 was the most booming business for us, ever. That's never been done again. Denmark, where the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, was insulted, was also good for us," says Rasheed, referring to the widespread furor in Pakistan after the 2005 publication by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of several editorial cartoons of the Islam's messenger, traditionally not encouraged to be drawn or depicted in any form.

"Personally, I believe in limits. If they [Americans] have crossed their limits, the least we can do is stay civilized. Flag burning has become an international way of protesting," he maintains.

"The message must be passed, though. There's nothing wrong with flag burning. Nothing," Rasheed says.

But he also implements editorial control over product requests that may be too graphic.

"There are requests, especially by younger members from political parties, for inappropriate language to be used in banners and placards. ... Very inappropriate requests. But I have to say no. In fact, I often give them suggestions that are more appropriate and civilized, as I don't think an insult resolves an insult," Rasheed says.

The art and science of burning a flag
Like most manufacturers, Rasheed is also a firm believer in economies of scale. He prefers bigger orders for flags, for he can then deploy his newer screen-printing versus the traditional and tedious hand-painted techniques. But if stuck with a smaller order of fifty or less, he prefers making the less popular – but still staple Pakistani choices, Israel and India – rather than Old Glory.

Waj Khan / NBC News

The stars and stripes hangs alongside the flags of India and Israel at Mamoon-ur-Rasheed's workshop in Karachi.

"American flags take time. The stripes and stars demand a lot of attention. Israel and India are simpler. Just a couple of lines on the edges, their symbols in the middle, and that's it," says Rasheed, who sells his wares from between 80 rupees (90 cents) to 200 rupees ($2.20), depending on dimensions and order quantities.

"But the American stars, especially the stars, are more difficult than the stripes. So we've now resorted to stenciling!"

And then, there are the consumers.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, or the Party of Islam, is the oldest religious party in Pakistan, dating back to the colonial days before the partition that divided the Indian subcontinent into Muslim Pakistan and secular India.

Then, the Jamaat didn't believe much in Muslim nationalism, the source of inspiration for Pakistan's founders, fearing it would make the country just another secular but Muslim dominated version of India.

Today, Jamaat's leaders repeatedly say they represent traditional Muslim values to which they believe all Pakistanis must adhere. It is also one of the leading protest organizers in the country, with the ability to turn out thousands of participants on the streets within an afternoon through social media, text messaging, neighborhood announcements, even prayer-time appeals from mosques.

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While it denies having any official policy of burning flags, and shuns militancy, its executives and activists defend flag burning as a emotive way of protesting what they claim is American wrongdoing.

"No, we're not supposed to be burning anything. We don't have the policy to insult any country. But if an individual wants to do it, he will," explains Riaz Ahmed Siddiqui, the deputy information chief of the Jamaat's Karachi wing, Pakistan's largest.

Waj Khan / NBC News

Riaz Ahmed Siddiqui, the deputy information chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, says he has tried to stop the burning of American flags during protests.

We are at a KFC in Millenium Mall, in relatively affluent northern Karachi. The Backstreet Boys' "My Way" is playing along to Siddiqui's chicken sandwich, which was just served to him by a waitress wearing a KFC polo shirt and baseball cap rather than traditional garb. He picks on his food and remains focused on his point.

"When we know someone is doing it, we try to stop it. I've personally grabbed flags away from people wanting to burn them. But remember that the entire process takes seconds. We can't stop spontaneity."

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'We're not killing anyone'
One of those spontaneous flag-burners is 21-year old Mohammad Yusuf Abulkhairi. Still completing his bachelors in mass communications, Abulkhairi is a member of Jamaat-e-Islami's powerful – and reputedly sometimes violent – student wing, the Islami Jamiat-e-Tuleba, or the Islamic Collective of Students.

Waj Khan / NBC News

Mohammad Yusuf Abulkhairi is a member of Jamaat-e-Islami's powerful student wing. "We're not killing anyone" he says. "We're just burning flags."

We caught up with Abulkhairi in the newly built bookstore at Idara-e-Noor-e-Haq, or the Institution of the Light of Righteousness, the official name of the Jamaat's headquarters in Karachi. He was browsing through an Urdu translation of "Fighting Dirty: The Inside Story of Covert Operations From Ho Chi Minh to Osama Bin Laden," a book about the CIA by Peter Harclerode.

Immediately, Abulkhairi admitted to having burned American flags, and asserted that this method destruction is actually constructive.

"Isn't flag burning positive, compared to American atrocities? And also compared to the Taliban? We're not attacking mosques. ... We're not targeting American embassies. We're not killing anyone. Nor are we flying drones around," he says. "We're just burning flags, mere pieces of cloth, and then we're done. It's over."

Siddiqui, the Jamaat executive, technically disagrees.

"We've never ordered a flag, officially. Not at the central level. If our students or units [area-based collectives] order flags for burning, that's different."

Official policies applicable or not, the Jamaat's rallies remain nationally famous for American, Israeli and Indian flag burnings and sloganeering. There have been no reported investigations of members like Abulkhairi who break the rules. Siddiqui, for his part, accuses the news media, especially international networks, for fanning the hype and actually asking rally participants to stage flag burnings so that they make headlines. 

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Anjum Naveed / AP

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

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The flagmaker, Rasheed, casually explains the way it all works on a day-to-day level.

"The flags are simple. You can't really be creative with them. But banners and placards are different. Orders for them are given over the phone. We sometimes add our own content if we feel it can improve their message," he says.

And a special order?

"Once in a while, we make effigies too. Ariel Sharon was rather popular, back when he was around. [George W.] Bush was very popular too. But now, increasingly, we are seeing more orders for Obama too. This wasn't the case earlier. He had a better reputation in Pakistan."

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