China Still Hosting Upcoming Olympics Despite Outcry Over Concentration Camps, Genocide
A spokeswoman for the World Uyghur Congress posed a question in a recent online meeting with Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the International Olympic Committee member who oversees preparations for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
“Why should China, a country running concentration camps with at least 1 million Muslim Uighurs being detained, be allowed to hold the Olympics?” she asked.
Zumretay Arkin told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the IOC’s response was disappointing.
“We gave the IOC representatives firsthand testimony about our personal experiences and how we are impacted by China’s repressive policies,” Arkin said.
“We were hoping it would open the door to a more valuable exchange.”
Instead, the IOC repeated its stance: It’s not a political body and doesn’t take a position on human rights issues. It simply organizes sporting events.
The Uighur body and other human rights groups sent an open letter a month ago to IOC President Thomas Bach, asking that the Games be removed from China.
In response, the IOC arranged an online meeting last week that included groups representing Tibet, Hong Kong and others.
In a statement to the AP, the IOC said: “Awarding the Olympic Games to a national Olympic committee does not mean that the IOC agrees with the political structure, social circumstances or human rights standards in its country. … The IOC has neither the mandate nor the capability to change the laws or the political system of a sovereign country.”
Arkin was born in Xinjiang, immigrated to Canada, and still has family in northwestern China. She described the situation in Xinjiang as a human rights issue, not simply a political issue.
“I am truly disappointed with the IOC’s response,” Dorjee Tseten, of Students for a Free Tibet, said in a statement after the meeting.
“The Olympics should be a celebration of cultural diversity, but what China is doing is cultural genocide. … Hosting the Olympics in China at this time when there are millions of people incarcerated is tantamount to the IOC giving China approval of these crimes.”
Arkin said the World Uyghur Congress is not asking for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics. That does not seem likely anyway, although calls for strong measures have come from Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, and U.S. senators Marco Rubio and Robert Menedez.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has not ruled out a boycott. Australian Senator Rex Patrick has called for one.
China in response has repeatedly blamed critics for “politicizing sporting events” and going against the Olympic Charter.
Arkin said the human rights coalition hoped to target some of the IOC’s top sponsors and might get support from athletes. She said the coalitions hoped to meet again with the IOC.
The IOC is also being pressured to change its Rule 50, which would allow athletes to protest at the Olympics.
Beijing wound up with the 2022 Winter Olympics almost by accident.
A handful of European countries, put off by the costs, pulled out of the bidding before the vote in 2015, leaving only Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the candidates. Beijing won by four votes.
Arkin calls what’s happening in Xinjiang a “genocide.”
She said between 1.8 million and 3 million Uighurs have been forcibly held in “re-education camps” with evidence of women undergoing forced abortions or sterilization. There is evidence of other detainees being moved to forced labor camps.
China faced pressure over human rights in the run-up the 2008 Beijing Olympics as well, but the country seemed to be opening at the time as it gave foreign reporters more scope to report in the country.
“In 2008 the international community strongly believed that bringing the Olympics to China would open up China,” Arkin said.
“And there was a lot of hope around this idea. Now no one believes this is going to bring change. It’s just going to be a propaganda parade from the Chinese government.”
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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