Beijing is using the Winter Olympics to hide its “terrible” human rights record, said the head of Human Rights Watch, calling on more countries to join the diplomatic boycott initiated by the United States .
“The Chinese government is clearly using the Beijing Games to whitewash or hide its terrible repression under sporting exploits,” Kenneth Roth accused in an interview with AFP, before the publication of the NGO’s annual report on human rights violations. humans in the world.
For him, more countries should refuse to send government officials to attend the Games.
The United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have announced that they will not send official representation to the Games because of “the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and others. human rights violations ”.
On the other hand, athletes from these countries will participate well in the competitions.
Kenneth Roth believes that countries “can’t just pretend everything is okay”. “At a minimum, the international community should join in the diplomatic boycott of the Games,” he asserts.
And he also targets the sponsors: “Rather than helping to launder, they should highlight what is happening in Xinjiang.”
Human rights organizations accuse the communist regime of having interned more than a million Uyghurs in political re-education camps.
Beijing denies this figure and speaks of “vocational training centers” intended to keep the population away from radicalization, after attacks attributed to Islamists or Uyghur separatists.
Kenneth Roth also attacked Elon Musk and his automobile company Tesla, which has just announced the opening of a dealership in Xinjiang.
“Each company should do everything it can not to endorse or legitimize the repression exercised by the Chinese government,” he said, believing that Tesla was going “totally against the tide”.
On the other hand, he praised the recent American legislation which bans all imports from Xinjiang unless the importer can prove that the imported product is free from any forced labor.
And he called on other countries to follow suit.
He also welcomed the fact that more countries seemed ready to criticize China at the United Nations and expressed hope that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights would soon publish a report on Xinjiang. Michelle Bachelet, who heads the High Commission, has been asking Beijing for “meaningful and unhindered access” to Xinjiang for years, but no such visit has so far been possible.
On the other hand, he reproached the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who is due to go to the Games, “for having been completely silent and for having refused to criticize the Chinese government”.