Reuters
US Senators submitted a draft resolution calling on the International Olympic Committee to deny China hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics, due to its “flagrant violation of human rights.”
And the draft resolution, submitted by seven Republican senators, calls on the International Olympic Committee to grant the honor to organize this competition to a country that attaches greater importance to the values defended by the Olympic movement.
One of the drafters of the draft resolution, Senator from Furya state, Eric Scott, said, “China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, restricting human rights in Hong Kong and threatening Taiwan.”
The draft resolution came in parallel with an initiative launched by some 180 organizations, notably the “World Uyghur Congress”, in which they called for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Since China was granted the right to host the Winter Olympics in 2015, the organizations wrote in an open letter, “President Xi Jinping has engaged in the relentless suppression of human rights and freedoms.”
The International Olympic Committee said in a statement that the concerns raised by non-governmental organizations “were and are still being discussed with the Chinese government and local authorities.”
For his part, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the 2022 Olympics will be a “wonderful event”.
He added that “attempts to interfere or disrupt preparations for the Games, for political reasons, are completely irresponsible.”
Experts and human rights organizations accuse China of detaining up to one million Uyghur Muslims in camps in Xinjiang.
China denies the accusations, and says that these camps are in fact vocational training centers that help these Uyghurs to find work with the aim of keeping them away from the temptations of religious extremism.
Source: AFP
Source link