Athletes traveling to the Beijing Winter Olympics were on Tuesday warned about speaking up on human rights issues while in China for their own safety by speakers at a seminar hosted by Human Rights Watch.
Rights groups have long criticized the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for awarding the Games to China, citing the treatment by the Chinese government of Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups, which the US has deemed “genocide.”
China denies the allegations of human rights abuses.
“There’s really not much protection that we believe is going to be afforded to athletes,” Global Athlete director-general Rob Koehler told the seminar. “Silence is complicity and that’s why we have concerns. So we’re advising athletes not to speak up. We want them to compete and use their voice when they get home.”
Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter stipulates: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic site, venue or other area.”
“Chinese laws are very vague on the crimes that can be used to prosecute people’s free speech,” Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang said. “People can be charged with picking quarrels or provoking trouble. There are all kinds of crimes that can be leveled at peaceful, critical comments.”
The US team is being shielded from questions about human rights, said Noah Hoffman, a cross-country skier who represented the US at the 2014 Sochi and 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games.
“I feel fear for my teammates going to China,” Hoffman said. “I know my teammates are being shielded about questions on these issues for their own safety. We should never have to protect athletes from speaking out about issues that they think are really important.”
“My hope for athletes there is that they stay silent because they are not only going to be prosecuted by the Chinese authorities, but they could also be punished by the IOC,” Hoffman added.
Concerns about data privacy and spying at the Games were raised on Tuesday when a smartphone app built by China to monitor the health of attendees was reported to contain security flaws.
“When it comes to surveillance, we know it’s there,” Koehler said. “There are reasons that several countries have come out and asked athletes not to bring their own mobile devices. Any person of a sane mind who hears these things must have concerns.”
The IOC said in an e-mailed response to a request for comment that the Olympic body at all times “recognizes and upholds human rights as enshrined in both the fundamental principles of the Olympic Charter and in its code of ethics.”
The Winter Olympics begin on Feb. 4. Several countries, including the US, Britain, Japan and Australia, have announced diplomatic boycotts of the Games over concerns about human rights in China.
Rangers on Wednesday bowed out of the UEFA Champions League playoffs with a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge which piles further pressure on head coach Russell Martin, while SL Benfica secured a place in the competition proper at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. The Glasgow giants traveled to Belgium right up against it after losing 3-1 at home in last week’s first leg, when they conceded three times in the opening 20 minutes. They never looked like turning the tie around as Club Brugge took the lead inside five minutes at the Jan Breydelstadion through Nicolo Tresoldi
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
Brentford striker Yoane Wissa says he wants to leave the English Premier League club and that it is “unduly standing in my way.” A day before the end of soccer’s summer transfer period, Wissa posted a lengthy statement on social media yesterday criticizing Brentford for rejecting an apparent offer from another Premier League club despite his willingness to switch between the teams. Wissa, a reported target for Newcastle, is yet to play for Brentford this season and had already removed any association with the club from his Instagram account. Yesterday, the 28-year-old DR Congo international took it a step further on the social
RSS