Beijing 2022: Human rights groups urge IOC to move Winter Olympics from China
- Coalition of human rights groups delivers demand to IOC president Thomas Bach but he does not comment
- The growing boycott movement against Beijing 2022 centres around a number of alleged human rights violations
China’s repression in Tibet, the status of the exiled Dalai Lama and its treatment of ethnic minorities spurred violent protests ahead of Beijing’s 2008 Olympics. It could happen again.
Beijing is to host the 2022 Winter Olympics with rumblings of a boycott and calls to move the Games because of alleged human rights violations.
A coalition of human rights groups delivered that demand to International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach ahead of the body’s executive board meeting in Switzerland on Wednesday. In a letter, the group asked the IOC to “reverse its mistake in awarding Beijing the honour of hosting the Winter Olympic Games in 2022”.
The letter said the 2008 Olympics had failed to improve China’s human rights record, and that since then, it has built “an Orwellian surveillance network” in Tibet and incarcerated more than a million Uygurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic group, in the Xinjiang region. It listed a litany of other alleged abuses from Hong Kong to the Inner Mongolia region, as well as the intimidation of Taiwan.
Asked on Wednesday about preparations in China for the 2022 Olympics at an IOC news conference, Bach made no reference to human rights issues or the letter sent.
The letter was signed by over 160 human rights advocacy groups, based in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, according to other reports.
