Protestors demanding a global boycott of next year’s Winter Games in China targeted the International Olympic Committee’s Swiss headquarters Saturday — demonstrating in the building’s lobby and even chaining themselves to the Olympic rings outside.
The small group, including members of Tibetan freedom organizations, derided the 2022 Beijing Olympics as the “Genocide Games” while they protested during a meeting of high-ranking Olympic officials in Lausanne.
In additions to the two Tibetan nationals who cuffed themselves to the rings, two other activists unfurled a banner along the building’s entrance, reading “No 2022 Beijing,” while five others got inside and sat down in protest.
The protesters were reportedly members of the Tibetan Youth Association and Students for a Free Tibet in Europe.
China seized control of Tibet after troops entered the region in 1950 in what it claimed was a “peaceful liberation.” Tibet has since become one of the most restricted areas in the country. Critics, led by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, say Beijing’s rule is “cultural genocide.”
“Despite mounting international criticism of IOC and China, the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses in Tibet, East Turkestan and Hong Kong continue unabated,” Tenzing Dhokhar, TYAE Campaign Director, one of the protesters, told Reuters.
“By collaborating with China, the IOC is making itself an accomplice of the Chinese Communist Party’s crimes, which will be sports-washed by the Beijing Olympics.”
The Biden administration announced Monday that it would be implementing a diplomatic boycott of the games, meaning no U.S. officials would attend the opening or closing ceremonies, but American athletes would still be allowed to compete.
China’s government has threatened “firm countermeasures” if the boycott went ahead. It also noted that no US official had formally been invited to attend the Games.
Police began removing protesters after three hours. Although organizers and a Reuters eyewitness said the protest was peaceful, the IOC said one of its security guards was injured.
The IOC said in a statement that it “always listens to all the concerns that are directly related to the Olympics. We have engaged multiple times with peaceful protesters and explained our position, but we will not engage with violent protesters who used force to enter the building and injured a security guard by doing so.”
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter ordered a full US boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A total of 65 countries declined to participate in the Moscow Games. The Soviet Union reciprocated by leading a boycott of its own four years later, when the Olympics were held in Los Angeles.
The 2022 Winter Olympics will take place Feb. 4 through Feb. 20. It will be Beijing’s second time hosting an Olympics, having previously been the site of the 2008 Summer Games.
With Post wire services
