The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief will take part in the Olympic Torch Relay ahead of the Beijing Winter Games, which will not be open to the public due to COVID-19, officials announced on Friday. Chinese authorities.
The relay, which will be attended by 1,200 torchbearers, will take place between the three main Games venues in Beijing and the neighboring province of Hebei from February 2-4, the opening date of the Games.
Ahmed Shaheed, UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, will take part, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.
The preparation for the Games has been clouded by a diplomatic boycott led by the United States in particular, in the name of Beijing’s human rights record, particularly with regard to the Uyghur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region.
Last October, the flame-lighting ceremony of the Beijing Winter Games in Athens, Greece, was also disrupted by human rights activists.
Mr. Shaheed “thinks the Beijing Winter Olympics […] will show the best of China and all of humanity,” said Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will attend the opening ceremony of the Games, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev or Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“Given the considerations related to the control of the epidemic […], the torch relay and ceremonial activities will be held in closed, safe and controllable venues,” Yang Haibin, an official with the Winter Games Organizing Committee in charge of the torch relay, said on Friday.
Olympic torchbearers will also need to be fully vaccinated and have undergone a 14-day health check before the event.
Already because of COVID, there was no Olympic relay on Greek soil before the flame arrived in Beijing, contrary to tradition.
The relay route will pass by Beijing landmarks such as the Great Wall and the Summer Palace, as well as the Olympic Park built for the 2008 Summer Games.
The Beijing Games will be the most restricted mass sporting event in the world since the start of the pandemic, with all participants having to operate in a strict “bubble” cut off from the outside world.
The organizers canceled the public sale of tickets for the Games this week, while China is experiencing a resurgence of epidemic outbreaks linked to the particularly contagious Omicron variant.