Human rights groups on Tuesday called on international governments, sponsors and athletes to boycott what they dubbed the “genocide games” in China, as Greek authorities handed over the Olympic flame for the 2022 Beijing Winter Games to organizers.
The activists, who also stormed the flame lighting ceremony in southern Greece on the eve, accused the International Olympic Committee of legitimizing rights abuses in China by allowing the Winter Games to be held in Beijing.
“Once again, we have witnessed hypocrisy” at the IOC, Mandie McKeown, executive director of the International Tibet Network, said at a press conference in Athens.
“They are handing over the Olympic torch to a host government that is so far from upholding any of the (Olympic) ideals that it seems like we are living in some kind of warped reality,” added McKeown.
China has received criticism from the international community for its treatment of Uighur Muslims in the northeastern region of Xinjiang, as well as for its crackdown on protests in Hong Kong and for its policies towards Tibet and Taiwan.
But the IOC, which has already awarded the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing, has avoided controversy by pointing out that it is not within its competence.
In his speech at the old Olympia stadium on Monday, IOC President Thomas Bach stressed that the modern Games must be “respected as a politically neutral ground.”
Activists alleged on Tuesday that human rights in the country had deteriorated since 2008 and claimed that those summer jousts “emboldened” China.
About four years ago, Beijing launched a brutal campaign that ended with at least one million Uighurs and members of other Muslim minorities in detention centers and prisons. Chinese authorities say their goal is not to eliminate the Uyghurs – a historic Muslim community of 13 million people – but to integrate them.
“If this press conference were held in China, I, as a Uyghur, would end up in a camp and possibly suffer sexual abuse and torture, like millions more Uighurs,” said Zumretay Arkin of the World Uyghur Congress. “The Olympic Games are being handed over to a country that is committing genocide.”
For his part, Pema Doma, campaign director for Students for a Free Tibet, said the IOC was making “a big mistake.”
“How can anyone think that the world there is no red line for genocide?” Said Doma, who was briefly detained Monday by ancient Olympia police before the protest.
The Olympic flame handover ceremony was held without spectators for the coronavirus pandemic in the now renovated old marble stadium of Athens, which hosted the first Games in modern history in 1896.
Three activists were arrested on Monday after breaking into the guarded ruins of ancient Olympia during the act of lighting the flame, holding a banner with the slogan “No to the Games of Genocide” and a flag of Tibet. Four other people were arrested abroad and two more protesters suffered the same fate Sunday at a protest on the Acropolis in Athens.
The last seven were released, but the first three remain in police custody in southern Greece.
The Beijing Winter Games will be held between February 4 and 20 with the sole presence of spectators from mainland China.
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