Human rights watchdog Amnesty International warned on Wednesday that the international community must be wary of being “complicit in a propaganda exercise” by China, who might misuse the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing as a “sportswashing opportunity.”
The group has recently been using the term to describe the practice of nations covering up their poor human rights record through sporting events. “It’s the process whereby a country or regime with a particularly poor human rights record uses sport as a way of creating positive headlines, positive spin about their countries,” Felix Jakens, Amnesty International Britain’s head of campaigns, explained in December.
The organisation fears that China will use the Games as a front to distract from its human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims and in Hong Kong, especially because its human rights situation has exacerbated and is now worse than when it hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008.
Amid a worsening human rights situation, the international community must not be complicit in a sportswashing exercise at the Beijing Games #Beijing2022 https://t.co/oVqOL2QPnf
— amnestypress (@amnestypress) January 14, 2022
“The Beijing Winter Olympics must not be allowed to pass as a mere sportswashing opportunity for the Chinese authorities and the international community must not become complicit in a propaganda exercise. The world must heed the lessons of the Beijing 2008 Games, when Chinese government promises of human rights improvements never materialised,” Amnesty International’s China researcher, Alkan Akad, said.
“Amid the severe restrictions in place at Beijing 2022, the International Olympic Committee must do better at keeping its promise to protect athletes’ right to voice their opinions, and above all, to ensure it is not complicit in any violations of athletes’ rights,” he added.
While several countries, including the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Australia, and Japan, have announced diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Olympics over humanitarian concerns, the organisation’s UK chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said that the step should just be the beginning of the international community’s efforts to build the pressure on China, not the end. “China is hoping for sportswashing gold and it’s vital that every effort is made to counteract that,” she said.
Separately, speakers at a seminar hosted by Human Rights Watch, another international human rights group, cautioned athletes travelling to Beijing next month to avoid speaking up about human rights issues for their own safety.
“There’s really not much protection that we believe is going to be afforded to athletes,” Rob Koehler, the director-general of the Global Athlete group, said during 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,” he continued.
Although China continues to deny the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, the US has already deemed China’s actions as genocide.