A coalition of 180 human rights organizations has called for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing due to human rights abuses, including repression of Uyghur Muslims. The activists published a corresponding appeal on their Internet resources.
Human rights activists noted that they had already appealed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with a demand not to hold games in China, but their arguments remained unheard. The organizations stressed that now it is the turn of the governments of the countries of the world to take a firm position on this issue.
“We therefore call on governments to boycott the Beijing 2022 Games – anything less would be seen as an endorsement of the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian rule and blatant disregard for civil and human rights,” the statement said.
In January, the United States recognized the crackdown on Uighur Muslims in China as genocide. The US administration assures that the “genocide” has been going on since at least 2017, and that the Chinese authorities are systematically destroying the Uighurs.
In July 2020, it became known that state documents of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomy indicate the intention of the Chinese authorities to sterilize thousands of Uyghur women. According to the budget data of two settlements, which was studied by Foreign Policy, the state allocated money for the sterilization of 14.8 thousand women in the city and just over 8 thousand in the province, as well as the installation of 5.9 thousand contraceptive uterine spirals. These measures are part of a comprehensive approach by the Chinese authorities to the Uyghur minority, which is condemned in several Western countries.
