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- Dan Roan (Dan Roan), Alex Capstick (Alex Capstick)
- BBC Sports
Image source,Reuters
The Beijing Winter Olympics will open on February 4, 2022.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision to grant China the right to host the Winter Olympics next year was criticized and a senior Olympic Committee official refused to accept it.
More than 180 organizations have appealed to governments around the world because of reports of China’s human rights violations against ethnic minorities, calling for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
The Uyghur World Congress described this as “a genocidal Olympiad.”
China’s treatment of its citizens is often criticized by many parts of the world.
However, Canadian Dick Pound, the oldest member of the International Olympic Committee, said that banning athletes from participating in the Olympics would be “a gesture that we know will not influence anyway.”
“This sport is not a Chinese game, it is an IOC game,” he told the BBC. “The decision on the right to host was not made under the concept of indicating recognition of a government policy.”
An advocacy group comprised of Tibetans, Uighurs, Hong Kong residents, etc., issued an open letter calling for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics to ensure that it “will not be used for the Chinese government’s staggering human rights violations. and the repression of dissent. See you act boldly. “
According to human rights organizations, in northwest China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the Chinese government has gradually weakened religious and other freedoms of Uyghurs, eventually forming a repressive system that integrates large-scale surveillance, detention , ideological and even forced education. sterilization.
China has always denied human rights violations in Xinjiang, insisting that the relevant field is not a detention camp but a “vocational training and education center.”
“Unfortunately, history is repeating what happened at the 1936 Nazi Olympics 82 years ago,” said Dorje Caidan of the Free Tibet Student Movement. This is one of the groups participating in the co-signature.
“The holding of the Olympic Games in Berlin helped Hitler’s genocide of Jews to legitimize and strengthen the Nazi regime. Governments and the international community must boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and take a stand to defend the values of the democracy, freedom and human rights. “
Zumretay Arkin of the Uyghur World Congress said: “The International Olympic Committee has completely ignored the suffering we have suffered. It is now up to governments to take steps to show decent humanitarianism by boycotting a genocidal Olympic Games.”
However, the vice president of the International Olympic Committee Pound refused to accept this criticism.
“Our wait and see all of this is that no matter how complicated and conflicting opinions are between different countries, we are trying to open a middle way here, using sport as a means of communication, even in the worst of times.” he said.
Human rights organizations also asked the International Olympic Committee to choose another venue for the Olympic Games; the opening hours of the Winter Olympics are less than six months before the postponed Tokyo Summer Olympics.
When asked whether the right to host the Winter Olympics should have been given to China, which had hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, Pound said: “If you had adopted that attitude, where would you be happy to be? host the Olympics? “
He accepts that some countries may consider a diplomatic boycott, but insists that it should not be imposed on athletes.
Image source,Reuters
The Beijing Winter Olympics and the delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics will take place in six months.
“Ministers can be removed during the Olympics … The functions of the embassy can be suspended. Governments can have various ways of showing disapproval. But cancel a sports meeting, either from the philosophical perspective of sports or from the actions In terms of the definition, they are really unreasonable. “
The United States prohibited its athletes from participating in the Summer Olympics held in the former Soviet Union in 1980. In retaliation, the Soviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.
“When people sit down and think about what this means … they will see that ‘this will not work’, and we have learned it from the two boycotts (1980 and 1984).”
“It won’t change related behaviors, so why should we sacrifice our athletes and their dreams to take a stance that we know won’t be influential anyway?”
The International Olympic Committee’s “Article 50 Rule” prohibits athletes from protesting at Olympic venues, and critics say the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will put athletes in a quandary.
“Athletes have no say in the rules of how to participate in the Olympics, but they will be blamed for participating,” said Rob Koehler, CEO of advocacy group Global Athlete.
“The National Olympic Committees should demand that the Olympic Charter of the International Olympic Committee be consistent with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and that athletes will no longer be placed in that position.”
“Athletes must have a voice and that is why we call for the abolition of Article 50.”
When asked about the relevant joint letter, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said he is “full of confidence in making the Beijing Winter Olympics a splendid, extraordinary and outstanding Olympic event.”
He also said: “It is very irresponsible to try to interfere, hinder or interrupt the preparation and holding of the Beijing Olympics for political reasons. I believe that such a move will not receive the support of the international community and is bound to fail.”
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