Activists opposed to holding the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in 2022, including Uyghurs and Tibetans, on Tuesday urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone the event, shortly before the Chinese hosts’ reception of the Olympic flame. in Athens. “It’s sport-bleaching. There is no legitimate reason to host the Games during a genocide, ”Zumretay Arkin, head of the Uyghur World Congress, told a press conference in the Greek capital.
“It is sure that there will be protests (in China) on the part of Uyghurs, Tibetans,” said Zumretay Arkin, who says he has been without contact with his family since 2017. According to her, this campaign “aimed at highlighting the various abuses “of the Chinese regime is stronger than that of 2008 against the Beijing Summer Olympics, because it brings together” the Uyghur communities, the communities of Hong Kong, the Tibetan communities, South Mongolians, Chinese and Taiwanese ”.
Activists arrested in Greece
According to these activists, Hong Kong residents, Tibetans and Uyghurs are subject to “Orwellian” surveillance in China, which they say worsened after the 2008 Olympics. The IOC is legitimizing “one of the worst human rights violations of the entire twenty-first century” and sullying the spirit of the Games, said Pema Doma, campaign director of the organization “Students for a Free Tibet ”.
“These Games cannot go as planned, they have to be postponed,” she said. Lit Sunday at Olympia, cradle of the ancient Games, the flame was handed over to the Beijing-2022 delegation on Tuesday at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, where the Olympic Games were relaunched in 1896, and will then fly to China.
The IOC kicks in on the respect of human rights in China https://t.co/rk3mJICfHJ
– 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) October 13, 2021
Several activists have been arrested in Greece since last weekend for protesting the Games. During the flame-lighting ceremony in Olympia on Monday, a few notably displayed a Tibetan flag and a banner proclaiming “No Genocide Games”. For his part, faithful to his line of conduct (more than doubtful) according to which sport does not make politics, the IOC Vice-President, the Australian John Coates, had declared that it was not in [les] attributions ”of the body to deal with the question of human rights in China. The ostrich policy still has a bright future ahead of it.