US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called on world leaders to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, amid concerns over Chinese human rights violations.
The senior Democrat says any leaders who do attend risk losing their “moral authority”.
The US State Department has declared that the Chinese government is “committing genocide and crimes against humanity” through its repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang .
Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as a million people have been arbitrarily detained, as part of China’s crackdown.
Beijing rejects these accusations, claiming it is using “vocational training centers” to stamp out extremism.
DIPLOMATIC BOYCOTT
The Beijing Winter Olympics are set to take place in February next year, just six months after the Tokyo Summer Olympics are scheduled to finish.
During a bipartisan Human Rights Commission hearing, Nancy Pelosi has called for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games.
Pelosi believes political leaders will lose ‘moral authority’ if they attend.
“For heads of state to go to China in light of a genocide that is ongoing – while you’re sitting there in your seat – really begs the question, what moral authority do you have to speak again about human rights any place in the world? Silence is inexcusable,” Pelosi said.
There have also been calls for the games to be relocated.
Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern says if the if the Olympics can be postponed by a year for a pandemic, “we can surely postpone the Olympics for a year for a genocide” to enable the IOC to find a new host nation.
FULL BOYCOTT?
Nancy Pelosi stopped short of saying athletes should boycott the games.
But that is what a coalition of human rights activists called for this week.
The group – representing Uyghurs, Tibetans, residents of Hong Kong and others – is calling for a full boycott of the games.
“This cannot be Games as usual or business as usual; not for the IOC and not for the international community,” Lhadon Tethong of the Tibet Action Institute told The Associated Press.
