When the Winter Olympics officially begin today in Beijing, US diplomats and international fans won’t be the only ones missing from the festivities. Olympic athletes from multiple countries who want to show solidarity with the victims of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses have been quietly preparing to boycott the Opening Ceremonies, according to human rights activists who have been helping to educate and organize them.
For several months, U.S.-based activists have been meeting with Olympic from several Western countries to urge them to speak out on the Chinese government’s mass atrocities and severe repression of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and other groups inside China. The athletes, facing the threat of punishment from the Chinese government if they talk about human rights, have almost all avoided addressing the subject in public.
The athletes have also come under pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its sponsors to avoid controversy. But if they don’t feel safe speaking out, the activists told them, skipping the Opening and Closing Ceremonies would at least deny the Chinese government the ability to use those ceremonies to legitimize its abuses and whitewash its crimes.
The Washington Post reported that Activists said that athletes from at least two Western teams confirmed they will not be attending the Opening Ceremonies as their personal form of protest.
“The simple gesture of skipping out on the Opening Ceremonies can be a tremendous opportunity for athletes to show solidarity and compassion towards the Uyghur, Tibetan, Hong Konger and Mongolian communities that have suffered unimaginable human rights violations by the hands of China’s Communist Party,” Dorjee Tseten, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) said. “
SFT has organized groups of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Hong Kongers to travel in recent months to Olympic qualifying events and other athletic competitions where they could meet with athletes and plead their case. Their original ask was for a full boycott of the Beijing Olympics, but as the bare minimum they asked athletes to boycott the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
