Elham Asaad Buaras
Pro-Uyghur activists have joined a coalition of more than 180 human rights groups, among them representatives of Tibetans, Inner Mongolians, and Hong Kong residents in calling for the boycott of next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics.
An open letter to the world’s governments was published on February 3, a year ahead of the opening ceremony on February 4, 2022.
Despite reiteration by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he believed genocide was being committed against Xinjiang’s (aka East Turkestan) ethnic minorities, President Joe Biden has signalled US athletes will not be barred from participation in the games.
“We’re not currently talking about changing our posture or our plans as it relates to the Beijing Olympics,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a news briefing on February 3.
“We consult, of course, closely with allies and partners at all levels to define our common concerns and establish a shared approach, but there is no discussion underway of a change in our plans from the US at this point,” she said.
The groups have said sending athletes to the games is akin to endorsing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and occupation, adding that a boycott of the Olympics would ‘ensure that they are not used to embolden the Chinese government’s appalling rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent.’
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is being asked to strip the games from China. Olympic leaders have largely ignored the demands and say it’s only a sporting body that does not get involved with politics.
The IOC’s decision to award the games to China was “a slap on the face of every Uyghur, Tibetan, Southern Mongolian, Hong Konger, Taiwanese, and Chinese democracy activists,” said Zumretay Arkin of the World Uyghur Congress.
Dorjee Tseten of Students for a Free Tibet said, “It is unfortunate that history is repeating what happened 82 years ago with the Nazi Olympics in 1936: hosting the Games in Berlin helped legitimise Hitler’s genocide against the Jewish people and bolstered the Nazi regime.
Governments and the international community must boycott the Beijing 2022 Games and take a stand to uphold the values of democracy, freedom, and human rights.”
The groups said because of the IOC’s inaction ‘it now falls on governments to take a stand and demonstrate that they have the political will to push back against China’s reprehensible human rights abuses.’
When Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympics it promised would improve human rights in the country, instead, the prestige of the Olympics has led to a ‘gross increase on the assault on communities living under its rule,’ said the coalition.
China has brushed off the criticisms as politicisation of sports. It has reacted strongly to charges of genocide. One Chinese official called it the “lie of the century”,
Since 2016, China has swept between 1.8 and three million ethnic Uyghurs as well as other predominantly Muslim minorities (Turkic peoples) into prisons and indoctrination camps that the state calls training centres, according to estimates by researchers and rights groups.
People have been subjected to torture, sterilisation and political indoctrination in addition to forced labour as part of an assimilation campaign, according to former residents and detainees, as well as experts and leaked government documents.
China at first denied the existence of the internment areas. It later acknowledged them, but denied any abuses and says the steps it has taken are necessary to combat terrorism and a separatist movement.
New accounts of systematic rape, sexual abuse and torture of women in the concentration camps were obtained by the BBC and published on February 3.
Tursunay Ziawudun, who fled Xinjiang after her release and is now in the US, said women were removed from the cells “every night” and raped by one or more masked Chinese men. She said she was tortured and later gang-raped thrice, each time by two or three men.
The BBC also interviewed a Kazakh woman from Xinjiang, who was detained for 18 months in the camp system. She was forced to strip Uighur women naked and handcuff them, before leaving them alone with Chinese men. Afterwards, she cleaned the rooms, she said.
“My job was to remove their clothes above the waist and handcuff them so they cannot move,” said Gulzira Auelkhan. “Then I would leave the women in the room and a man would enter – some Chinese man from outside or policeman. I silently sat next to the door, and when the man left the room I took the woman for a shower”.
The Chinese men “would pay money to have their pick of the prettiest young inmates“, she said.