Activists Urge Athletes to Boycott China’s Genocide Olympics for Their Safety

Human rights activists and victims of the communist regime in China launched a campaign on Monday to encourage American athletes to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, for moral reasons as well as their own safety.

The Winter Olympics in the capital of the world’s most egregious human rights abusing state are set to begin on February 4. Activists have for over a year urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to change the venue out of respect for the victims of the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic group members in East Turkistan, as well as the cultural genocide of Tibetans and Southern Mongolians, the repression of pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong, and the extreme human rights violations committed following the initial spread of the Chinese coronavirus out of central Wuhan, China.

Concerns about the health and safety of athletes became more acute towards the end of the year following the disappearance of tennis champion Peng Shuai – who accused the former head of China’s Olympic Committee of raping her – and the resurgence of the Chinese coronavirus nationwide after the Communist Party promoted travel to celebrate its founding in October. Beijing began limiting travel into the city and locking down affected neighborhoods in November.

A coalition of human rights groups known as the Genocide Games Task Force launched a campaign urging Americans to send letters to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) encouraging athletes not to participate in the event. Many American athletes have been training for months for the event and none have shown any indication they will abstain from competing.

The letter, directed at the American Olympian organization, warns that China’s poor handling of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic directly endangers American athletes.

“Chinese assurances that arrangements to protect foreign athletes and support personnel – and for that matter, sponsors – ring hollow given the lies the PRC [Chinese] regime has consistently promoted from the moment it was caught disseminating the [Chinese] virus around the world,” the letter read in part.

“In recent days, huge Chinese cities have been subjected to forcible lock-down, including the 13 million residents of Xi’an. … Some of those thus effectively imprisoned are said to be famished and starving,” the letter noted. “This draconian response seems to reflect the dire nature of the [Chinese coronavirus] threat in China at the moment, prompting speculation that a new, more dangerous strain of the disease is involved. There are also reports that the Chinese are contending with deadly hemorrhagic fever.”

The Xi’an lockdown became globally notorious after residents of the city began posting online that they were starving and government officials would not leave their homes to find food. At least two deaths were reported during the lockdown over hospitals denying patients care: an eight-months-old pregnant woman who miscarried and a man who died of heart failure.

The Communist Party responded to the furor surrounding the government’s poor reaction to the outbreak by making it illegal to complain about lockdowns on social media.

“But for the evident desire not to prompt harsh retaliation by the Chinese government, it seems clear that neither the USOPC nor the IOC would contemplate sending the world’s athletes and their supporting staff into such an environment,” the letter, which the Genocide Games Task Force urged concerned citizens to send to the USOPC, concluded. “Fear of the CCP’s [Communist Party’s] bullying, however, must not take precedence over the safety and wellbeing, to say nothing of the lives, of our Olympians.”

The Genocide Games Task Force is a team jointly sponsored by the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) and Women’s Rights Without Frontiers (WRWF). The group has also launched a petition calling for the athletes to withdraw from the event.

Only one country in the world has committed to boycotting the Beijing Olympics: North Korea. The repressive communist regime and top China ally announced it would not send athletes to the Games last week as a protest against the United States and other nations lamenting the deplorable human rights conditions in China, and to protect North Korean athletes from Chinese coronavirus disease.

The IOC banned North Korea from the Olympics, so its “boycott” is merely ceremonial.

Some countries, like the United States, have announced what they branded a “diplomatic boycott.” A diplomatic boycott is not a boycott, as athletes will continue to participate in the Games. Instead, the “diplomatic boycott” would presumably keep politicians and diplomats home while sending the athletes to Beijing on their own. The Chinese government revealed last month, however, that the administration of President Joe Biden had lied about the “diplomatic boycott” and that several American officials had applied for visas to attend the Games.

The letter to the USOPC follows repeated claims by the Chinese government, supporters of the Olympics generally, and American politicians who oppose a boycott that not participating in the Games actively hurts the athletes. Among the most prominent supporters of the Beijing Games in American politics is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has taken to the airwaves to promote American participation.

“I don’t think it’s fair to punish a bunch of young athletes — young men and women — who have spent their entire lives training for just this brief moment to compete on the international stage,” Cruz told Breitbart News last month. “I’m not willing to destroy their dreams.”

Given the lack of action by the IOC and foreign governments, human rights groups have directed their efforts to the athletes that make the Games worth watching. This weekend, activists from Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) – representing one of the most persecuted communities under the yoke of the Chinese Communist Party – organized a meeting with Winter Olympics athletes training in Minnesota. SFT noted in appreciation support from members of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement supporting them. The activists delivered a letter to the athletes explaining that their opposition to the Games was not a personal attack against the competitors.

“We never wanted to politicize the Winter Olympics, but for nearly two years now, the IOC has failed us, and failed you,” the letter read in part. “And so one month from today, the IOC will ask you to stand alongside the genocidal Chinese government at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, and to join them in legitimizing the propaganda, sportswashing, and silencing of a 21st-century Holocaust.”

Last week, marking one month until the start of the Games in Beijing, protesters organized rallies outside of NBC Studios in New York, Washington, DC, and Boston, urging the network not to air the event.

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