Members of the Tibetan community are set to organise a demonstration in Lafayette Square, Washington DC on Monday, calling for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games over human rights issues in China.
"Don't forget about our rally happening today at 2pm! (Lafayette Square, Washington DC) Media can join at 3 pm for the press conference portion of the rally," Students for a Free Tibet tweeted.
For the past few months, Uyghur, Tibetan and Hong Kong activists have been holding protests across the world, calling for a complete boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
Ahead of the Beijing Winter Games next year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has raised concerns about the event, saying the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) major corporate sponsors should "explain" how they are using their leverage to address human rights abuses in China.
In a statement, HRW said that sponsors should also press the IOC to adopt a human rights policy to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for any adverse human rights impacts across all Olympic operations and events, including for the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.
The rights group said that the Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, escalated repression in Hong Kong, tightened control over the media, and deployed mass surveillance.
"There are just three months until the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, but corporate sponsors remain silent over how they are using their influence to address China's appalling human rights record," said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.
"They are squandering the opportunity to show their commitment to human rights standards and risk instead being associated with an Olympics tainted by censorship and repression."
( With inputs from ANI )
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