Calls for boycott of Beijing Olympics over Chinese repression intensify, protest in Canberra against 2022 Games

A protest was held on Wednesday near Parliament House in Australia, calling for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics amid ongoing Chinese genocide against Uyghur Muslims and the severe repression in Tibet, Southern Mongolia, Hong Kong.

The protest was organised under the campaign "No Beijing 2022 Global Day of Action" on Olympic Day.

A group of campaigners representing Tibetan, Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Hongkonger and Taiwanese people have held rallies in over 60 global cities, calling on world leaders, Olympic bodies and sponsors to boycott Beijing 2022 Games.

Demands for some form of boycott of the Beijing Games are continuously growing.

In May, a coalition of human rights groups has called for a complete boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, saying that participating in the games would be tantamount to endorsing China's genocide against the Uyghur people".

A coalition, representing Uyghurs, Tibetans, residents of Hong Kong and others, issued a joint statement in May calling for the boycott.

It said that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uyghur people and waging an unprecedented campaign of repression in East Turkistan, Tibet and Southern Mongolia, as well as an all-out assault on democracy in Hong Kong.

China has been rebuked globally for crackdown on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.

Early this year, the United States become the first country in the world to declare the Chinese actions in Xinjiang as "genocide".

In February, both the Canadian and Dutch parliaments adopted motions recognising the Uyghur crisis as genocide. The latter became the first parliament in Europe to do so. In April, the United Kingdom also declared China's ongoing crackdown in Xinjiang a "genocide".

In Hong Kong, the Chinese government has implemented a draconian National Security Bill that effectively criminalizes protest and curtails any remaining human rights.

Meanwhile, protests by Southern Mongolians, whose rights, language, and culture being eradicated, are put down with force.

The Chinese government occupied Tibet in 1950 and has ever since tried to control the region, destroying 98 per cent of the monasteries and nunneries.

China is using the same suppression tactics against Tibet that it has been using against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, with about 500,000 Tibetans are now being held in labour camps.

( With inputs from ANI )

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