By Tenzin Menkyi
DHARAMSHALA, July 31: Despite continued protests from human rights advocates including Tibetan groups Beijing on Friday won the bid to host 2022 winter Olympics, beating Almaty by 44 votes to 40 with one abstention. The International Olympic Committee announced the decision in Lausanne, Switzerland, where members of Tibetan Youth Association in Europe along with former political prisoner Golog Jigme, who assisted in making of the film ‘leaving fear behind’, carried out a protest condemning the decision.
“I hope my fellow Tibetans in Tibet do not pay a price in 2022 like the one I and others paid for the Olympic games in 2008. I am deeply sorry that the IOC has rejected pleas from Tibetan, Chinese and so many other human rights defenders to keep the Games from Beijing. They must now accept responsibility for the decision and that includes withdrawing the honor of the Games from China if it continues its repression in Tibet,” said Golok Jigme.
The International Tibet Network, a global coalition of Tibet-related non-governmental organizations, which initiated a campaign against awarding of the games to Beijing in March, said on its website, “The IOC has sent the wrong message to the wrong people at the wrong time. China wants the world to ignore its deteriorating human rights…the honour of a second Olympic games is a propaganda gift to China when what it needs is a slap in the face.”
The Washington DC based International Campaign for Tibet said the IOC should make public the commitments that the Chinese Government has made in order to secure the Olympics to ensure that China abides by its code of ethics and commitments. “Serious human rights violations continue to take place in Tibet through repressive political campaigns, institutional racism, and long-term policies that marginalize Tibetans economically, threaten the survival of the Tibetan identity, and cause tension and ill-will between the Chinese and Tibetans peoples.”
The decision has sent shockwaves of despair through the network of Chinese human rights activists and the Tibetan exile world with ordinary Tibetans and supporters alike expressing their disappointment on the social network.
“The IOC has consistently proved that the Olympics are awarded for only for business; and ‘peace by sports’ is only a lip-service, including 1936 Hitler’s Berlin Olympics. Only a serious disturbance in their business can deter IOC to think again,” wrote Tenzin Tsundue, Tibetan writer and activist.
Leading human rights groups have also expressed regret over the decision saying the IOC has awarded the games to China at a time when it is going through the worst crackdown on human rights in decades. “Its time for the IOC and the Olympic movement to insist that China play by the rules, or want to see another Olympics tarnished by ugly human rights abuses,” said Minky Worden, Global Initiative director at Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights in China, a New York based right group run by Chinese dissidents, questioned, “As China has proven time and again, it can accomplish incredible feats, no doubt including hosting impressive Winter Olympics. The question is: at what human and environmental cost?”
