Demands for boycott of Chinese Winter Olympics due to human rights abuses

GROUPS alleging human rights abuses against minorities in China have called for a full boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

A coalition representing Uighurs, Tibetans, residents of Hong Kong and other groups issued a statement calling for the boycott, eschewing lesser measures that had been floated such as “diplomatic boycotts” and further negotiations with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or China. “The time for talking with the IOC is over,” Lhadon Tethong of the Tibet Action Institute said. “This cannot be games as usual or business as usual; not for the IOC and not for the international community.”

The Beijing Games are set to open on February 4, 2022, just six months after the end of the postponed Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Rights groups have met several times in the last year with the IOC, asking that the games be removed from China. A key member in those talks was Zumretay Arkin of the World Uighur Congress.

Ms Tethong, herself, was detained and deported from China in 2007 – a year before the Beijing Summer Olympics – for leading a campaign for Tibet. “The situation where we are now is demonstrably worse that it was then,” Ms Tethong said, pointing out that the IOC said the 2008 Olympics would improve human rights in China.

“If the games go ahead, then Beijing gets the international seal of approval for what they are doing.”

The calls come a day before a joint hearing in the US Congress on the Beijing Olympics and China’s human rights record, and just days after the US Olympic Committee said boycotts are ineffective and only hurt athletes.

Ms Tethong said: “People have worked to engage with the IOC to have them understand the issues directly from those most impacted – the Uighurs at the top of that list and the Tibetans and others. It’s clear the IOC is completely uninterested in what the real impacts on the ground for people are.”