NNWN/28/01/2022

Even as countdown has begun for Beijing Olympics, human rights activists across the globe have started raising their voices for boycott of the winter Olympics in China citing China’s poor human rights record. Amnesty International’s Taiwan chapter said that the Chinese Taipei Olympics Committee (CTOC) should ensure that the freedom of speech of Taiwanese athletes is protected when they compete at the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing this year.  Four Taiwanese including two women are slated to take part in the Olympic games.

In late December, Amnesty international had launched a global initiative to support six people — Taiwanese campaigner Lee Ming-che and five Chinese dissidents — who have been imprisoned, detained or gone missing for exercising their freedom of speech in China. But due to China’s gross record of human rights violations in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong, Taiwanese legislators launched the calls for withdrawal from the 2022 Beijing games from Taiwan’s ruling New Power Party (NPP) earlier last month. In separate event, 31 civic groups and 15 politicians requested the government to organize a diplomatic boycott of the Winter and Paralympic Games in Beijing because of its human rights violations.

As many as 243 NGOs from all over the world have urged the governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, and for athletes and sponsors not to legitimize government abuses. The NGOs stated that 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will open amid atrocity crimes and other grave human rights violations by the Chinese government. The BGOs , 243 nongovernmental organizations from around the world said today. The groups urged governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Games, slated to begin February 4, 2022, and for athletes and sponsors not to legitimize government abuses. The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will open amid atrocity crimes and other grave human rights violations by the Chinese government, 243 nongovernmental organizations from around the world said today. The groups urged governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Games, slated to begin February 4, 2022, and for athletes and sponsors not to legitimize government abuses.

Human Rights Watch’s China Director Sophie Richardson said that It’s not possible for the Olympic Games to be a ‘force for good,’ as the International Olympic Committee claims, while the host government is committing grave crimes in violation of international law. Under President Xi Jinping, Chinese authorities have been committing mass abuses against Uyghurs, Tibetans, ethnic groups, and religious believers from all independent faith groups. They have eliminated independent civil society by persecuting human rights activists, feminists, lawyers, journalists, and others. The government has eviscerated a once-vibrant civil society in Hong Kong, expanded tech-enabled surveillance to significantly curtail the rights to expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and allowed the use of forced labour,in violation of international law.