By Tenzin Menkyi
DHARAMSHALA, July 23: Tibetans, Chinese and Mongolian activists have called on the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to reject Beijing’s bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, exactly a week before the date for the draw of host city.
IOC will announce the host city for the 2022 Olympics at the 128th IOC Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 31 July when the two bidders, China and Kazakhstan, eagerly await the IOC’s decision.
Golok Jigme; a former Tibetan political prisoner, Rebiya Kadeer; president of the World Uyghur Congress, Enghebatu Togochog; the director of the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre, and Yang Jianli; the president of Initiatives for China urged the IOC, have written a joint letter to the IOC asking it not to award the games to Beijing. “All of the people we represent have suffered as a result of the Chinese government’s contempt for human rights,” the letter read.
The letter draws the attention of the IOC to “the brutal and ruthless crackdown on Tibetans, ban on fasting during Ramadan for Uyghurs, and forced displacement of nomads in the Southern Mongolian from their ancestral grazing lands.
“There is no excuse for making this mistake because we have been here before. This time it is imperative that the IOC stands on the right side of history, and gives hope to all those – including Tibetans, Uyghurs, Southern Mongolians, and Han Chinese – who continue to bravely defend human rights and principles in an extremely dangerous and hostile climate,” the trio wrote.
Meanwhile, a leading human rights organization has also asked the IOC not to award the Games to Beijing saying the Games would ‘implicitly’ endorse current human rights abuses of China. “We’ve already seen one Olympic Games fuel human rights abuses in China, and the environment in 2015 is significantly worse than it was in 2008,” said Minky Worden, Global Initiatives director at Human Rights Watch.
The rights group further said that the Chinese government is hostile to criticism, targeting activists and their family members who are harassed and arbitrary detained. “The International Olympic Committee should insist that the host country rigorously comply with the Olympic Charter and basic human rights rules – or risk losing the right to host the games.”
The New York based right group said IOC should ensure that the host of the 2022 Winter Olympics fully respects human rights commitments in preparing for and hosting of the games.
