Human rights groups call for Beijing boycott ahead of Winter Olympic Games

On the same day Greek officials handed over the Olympic flame to 2022 Beijing Winter Games organizers, human rights groups called for a boycott of the Games. The video above showed both the handing over of the flame Tuesday, as well as the flame arriving in Beijing Wednesday.

“In accordance with the requirement to hold a simple, safe and excellent Games we insist on prioritizing public health and safety and coordinating the torch relay with pandemic control and prevention requirements,” Executive Vice President of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee Zhang Jiandong said Wednesday. “We have consulted with the International Olympics Committee (IOC) and made a torch relay plan that reduces the routes, the amount of time and the number of personnel involved.”

This week’s Olympic flame-related ceremonies did not come without controversy. Activist groups disrupted Monday’s flame lighting ceremony, and on Tuesday accused the IOC of granting China legitimacy by allowing what the groups call the “genocide games” to go ahead. The video above also shows activists discussing their Beijing boycott efforts.

“So for the international community to engage with the IOC on this plan to host the Winter Olympics in Beijing is completely unconscionable,” Students for a Free Tibet Campaigns Director Pema Doma said. “Any human around the world, part of the international community, should take a stand together and say that genocide is a red line for us.”

In addition to its policies toward Tibet and Taiwan, the Beijing boycott call came amid international criticism of China’s crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong, as well as the country’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

“Currently, as we stand here, millions of Uyghurs are suffering in concentration camps in the 21st century, where they are subjected to torture, sexual abuse, including rape, maltreatment, and surveillance, forced separation of families, forced labor,” Zumretay Arkin, a program and advocacy manager at the World Uyghur Congress, said Tuesday. “This crisis has affected millions of people. I’m Uyghur myself and I have missing and detained relatives back home.”

IOC officials have said they are committed to seeing the competition go ahead, saying it’s not their responsibility to address rights issues in host countries. In a Monday speech, IOC President Thomas Bach said the Games must be “respected as politically neutral ground.”