Canada plans to relocate Winter Olympics from China over 'abuses of Uighur minority'

Amid the international calls to boycott Beijing's Winter Olympics in 2022 over human-rights abuses in China, 13 Canadian MPs from all five major federal parties wrote to International Olympic Committee on February 6 to relocate the games to another country. Citing China's Uyghur minority humanitarian abuses, Canadian lawmakers, joined forces with a coalition of 180 rights groups that have boycotted next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics, scheduled for Feb. 4, 2022, “to ensure they are not used to embolden the Chinese government’s appalling rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent,” per an open letter issued for the global leadership. The Canadian MPs, meanwhile, in a separate letter, reiterated the concern with the IOC that oversees Olympic and Paralympic Games, stating highlighting China’s treatment of its Uyghur population in a letter, cited by Canadian Press. Meanwhile, the World Uyghur Congress labelled Olympics 2022 as the “Genocide Games” and asked the IOC to relocate them from China. 

"We have a unique opportunity to come together with all the world's humanitarians and democrats and take action by refusing to participate in this global sports festival, on the grounds that doing so would amount to taking part in a sinister, self-aggrandizing spectacle staged for the benefit of a regime that is perpetrating the worst possible crimes against humanity against its own people," the content of the letter reads. 

Furthermore, the Canadian MPs stated, "Some may argue that sports and politics should not mix. We would respond that when genocide is happening, it is no longer a matter of politics, but of human rights and crimes against humanity.”

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International human rights report

Last year, in October, Canada’s House of Commons subcommittee on international human rights tabled a report that alleged that China's Uyghur policy amounts to ‘genocide’. According to the report, accessed by CBC, the Canadian Commons committee alleged that the ethnic minority community was detained in concentration camps, hit with forced labour,  state surveillance, and population control measures designed to eradicate Uyghur culture. “China's campaign against the Uyghur meets the definition of genocide set out in the 1948 Genocide Convention," the ministers asserted in the report.

Chinese President Xi Jinping “will not be deterred by threats of a boycott,” Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, said in an email, cited by AP. “Instead, Xi’s government will make threats to ruin the economic future of any sportsperson who may be involved in a boycott and try to deter anyone from doing so.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, in a statement trashed Canada’s allegations, saying that the human rights violations and genocide of Uyghur were a farce fabricated by the anti-Chinese element that aims to slander China’s reputation on the global platform. The report is full of lies and disinformation, Zhao Lijian said. Meanwhile, in late January, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken under Biden’s administration alleged that China committed genocide and persecution of Uyghurs in the country's Xinjiang province, adding that the new US administration agreed with the Trump administration’s reports on the same. 

[Protesters hold Tibetan flags during a protest against Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics by activists of the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe, in front of the International Olympic Committee, IOC, headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Credit: AP]

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