Against the tide of a wave of boycotts, Antonio Guterres, the UN chief, has indicated that he will attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022, his spokesperson announced. word, this Thursday.
“The Secretary General received an invitation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to attend the opening of the Winter Games in Beijing and accepted it,” Stéphane Dujarric said during his daily press briefing.
Towards retaliation from China?
The United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom announced earlier this week a “diplomatic boycott”, accusing Beijing in particular of human rights violations against the Chinese Muslim minority of Uyghurs. However, these countries will send many athletes to the Games, which will be held from February 4 to 20, 2022, but no official officials. China has warned that they will pay “the price” for their boycott, without specifying the nature of the retaliation.
Several human rights organizations accuse China of having interned at least a million Muslims in Xinjiang, most of them Uyghurs in “re-education camps”. Washington denounced a “genocide”. Beijing disputes and claims that these are vocational training centers intended to distance them from terrorism and separatism.