(TibetanReview.net, Feb09’21) – China has spewed contempt on the more than 180 human rights groups and others calling for boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing over its genocidal and other massive and systematic human rights violations, saying they will never succeed. But now China has warned that it will “seriously sanction any country” that makes a statement against it by refusing to send athletes to Beijing.
The Chinese position was made clear through Hu Xijin, the Editor of China’s propaganda mouthpiece The Global Times.
“Boycotting 2022 Beijing Winter Games, an unpopular idea, won’t receive wide support,” Hu has written on Twitter on Feb 7.
“IOC and athletes will both oppose it, and China will seriously sanction any country that follows such a call,” news.com.au Feb 9 quoted Hu as saying.
Hu’s dire warning came after a coalition of over 180 human rights organisations banded together to issue an open letter to world governments, urging them to boycott the 2022 Games to “ensure they are not used to embolden the Chinese government’s appalling rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent”.
The letter mentioned the enormity of the violations taking place in occupied Tibet and Xinjiang as well as within China itself.
A large number of countries have recently condemned the alarming level of human rights violations of the Party-state of China under an increasingly dictatorial Xi Jinping rule, including with allegations of genocide being carried out in Xinjiang and the imposition of a draconian national security law in Hong Kong. But so far no government has spoken about boycotting the 2022 Beijing winter games.
