{"id":377812,"date":"2021-12-07T21:43:34","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T18:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-is-canada-playing-in-the-2022-beijing-olympics-amidst-chinas-human-rights-abuses\/"},"modified":"2021-12-07T21:43:34","modified_gmt":"2021-12-07T18:43:34","slug":"why-is-canada-playing-in-the-2022-beijing-olympics-amidst-chinas-human-rights-abuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-is-canada-playing-in-the-2022-beijing-olympics-amidst-chinas-human-rights-abuses\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why is Canada playing in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, amidst China’s human rights abuses?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Why is Canada playing in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, amidst China’s human rights abuses?<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Speedskating<\/p>\n

Speedskating trials last October in Beijing, a controversial choice as host city for the 2022 Winter Game<\/a>s (Lintao Zhang\/International Skating Union\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Olympic flame-lighting ceremony was underway at the Temple of Hera, the oldest temple at Olympia in Greece, as Chemi Lhamo hid nearby, hoping security wouldn\u2019t spot her. She listened quietly as the actor playing the role of high priestess offered a symbolic prayer to Apollo, the Greek god of light. She watched as the iconic torch was lit. She waited until the flautist stopped playing.<\/p>\n

Then, amid the silence, Lhamo made her presence known. \u201cHow can Beijing be allowed to host the Olympics given that they are committing a genocide against the Uighurs?\u201d the Canadian shouted.<\/p>\n

She called out in support of Taiwan, as well as those persecuted in Hong Kong and her homeland of Tibet\u2014until security whisked her away. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize how loud I was,\u201d Lhamo said in an interview, a week after her protest in mid-October. \u201cAfter three days in jail, I got to see a video [of the incident], and people could actually hear my voice. I truly believe that voice came from somewhere within, amplified by all of the oppressed people around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0What it\u2019s like to be on trial in China\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Lhamo has kept up her calls for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to find a new host nation for the 2022 Games. And she\u2019s not the only one making her voice heard. More than 160 human rights and advocacy groups delivered a joint letter to the IOC in September saying the reputation of the Games and the Olympic spirit will suffer if the event is held in China. In Canada, Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe spearheaded an open letter demanding a new location\u2014and it earned multiparty support in the House of Commons. It condemned the Chinese government, stating that \u201cclose to two million Uighurs and Turkic Muslims are being held in concentration camps that Chinese authorities odiously refer to as \u2018vocational training centres.\u2019 \u201d It spoke of children being kidnapp<\/a>ed, of women being sterilized and of cultural erasure.<\/p>\n

\"Lhamo<\/p>\n

Lhamo is calling on companies to drop their sponsorships and for official Olympic broadcasters like the CBC to highlight China\u2019s human rights abuses in their coverage (Photograph by May Truong)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe are not asking our athletes to give up their Olympic dream, because we know full well how much effort will have gone into pursuing it,\u201d the letter went on. \u201cHowever, we believe that there is still time to demand that the International Olympic Committee move the Games to another country if the Chinese government continues its genocidal campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with the Games slated to start in February, and the IOC steadfast in its decision to let the Chinese capital host them, many critics concede that a move is highly unlikely. Which leaves a question many Canadians are asking in the early weeks of 2022: should we be sending our athletes to Beijing at all?<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada should not be going,\u201d says David Mulroney, Canada\u2019s ambassador to China from 2009 to 2012. \u201cI feel terrible for the athletes, but I feel worse for Uighurs who are imprisoned. There are no good outcomes here. But participating in the Games as a genocide is happening is profoundly wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0\u2018Only athletes pay the price\u2019: The COC president on the folly of boycotting the Beijing Olympics\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Trudeau government has ducked the issue, saying the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees operate independently of the government, and that the choice of whether to go to the Games lies with them. The COC has been resolutely in favour of Canada attending. Doing so will help \u201cshine a light on these Games,\u201d says CEO David Shoemaker, who adds: \u201cIt creates a global dialogue around issues, and our participation amplifies the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The COC says it is committed to providing opportunities for athletes to express themselves freely, and to amplify their voices where they can. And the IOC has assured them that China will abide by Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, says Shoemaker, which now allows athletes to protest so long as it\u2019s not on the Olympic podium, at the opening or closing ceremonies, in the athletes\u2019 village or on the field of play.<\/p>\n

That leaves more space for dissent than you might think, including press centres and mixed zones where athletes speak to media. \u201cMany athletes feel they can actually make more of a statement by going, and then tweeting or participating in social protests, rather than not being there at all,\u201d says Angela Schneider, a former Olympic rower and now director of Western University\u2019s International Centre for Olympic Studies. \u201cChina has a lot of power, but it doesn\u2019t have control over an individual athlete\u2019s Facebook<\/a> account.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0At Michael Kovrig\u2019s trial, the world had Canada\u2019s back\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not everyone is convinced. MacIntosh Ross, a kinesiology professor at Western who has written frequently about Olympic boycotts, says giving Canadian athletes any assurance they can speak freely against human rights abuses in China is \u201ca terrible idea.\u201d \u201cThe IOC can\u2019t protect them,\u201d he warns. \u201cThey don\u2019t have a military. They don\u2019t have police. And all visitors are subject to the host nation\u2019s laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ross has instead advocated for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games,\u00a0as the U.S. government announced earlier this week. \u201cU.S. diplomatic or official representation would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the [People\u2019s Republic of China] egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang,\u201d explained\u00a0White House press secretary Jen Psaki. \u201cWe simply can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Canadian government is reportedly mulling over joining such a boycott, Ross says broadcasters like the CBC could also boycott showcasing the Games on TV. But he too says Canada should not be sending athletes, a sentiment that a large number of his compatriots appear to share. An August poll from Nanos Research found that a majority either supported or somewhat supported a boycott. And while critics of such actions point to the 1980 Games in Russia, which didn\u2019t end the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Ross counters with the massive, decades-long international sporting boycott of South Africa\u2014an important tool, he says, that \u201cput pressure on the apartheid government.\u201d<\/p>\n

What impression Canada\u2019s absence from these Games would make on Beijing is an open question. Xi Jinping\u2019s Communist regime responded with contempt to widespread Canadian outrage over the arrests of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who were detained for more than 1,000 days in China, and released only after Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou\u2019s house arrest in Vancouver ended. Less well-known is the plight of Uighur human rights activist Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen who was arrested in 2006 while visiting Uzbekistan and sent to China, where he\u2019s been detained ever since\u2014reportedly without a single consular visit.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Inside the fight to bring the two Michaels home from China\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One of Celil\u2019s most vocal supporters in Canada says he\u2019d \u201clove to hear the athletes say they aren\u2019t participating\u201d in the Olympics. \u201cThe fact that we\u2019re giving a genocidal regime the opportunity to take this very prestigious world event that is supposed to symbolize unity, dignity and peace\u2014while they\u2019re actively perpetrating genocide against Uighurs and Turkic Muslims\u2014is a disgrace,\u201d says Calgary\u2019s Babur Ilchi, program director at the non-profit Campaign for Uyghurs.<\/p>\n

But current Olympians willing to speak up against China have been hard to find. When Bloc MP Brunelle-Duceppe spoke with Canadian Olympic legend Jean-Luc Brassard about signing that open letter, he asked the 1994 gold medallist if he could find any active Olympic athletes willing to add their signatures. \u201cI\u2019m not going to find any,\u201d Brassard recalls telling him. \u201cI can swear to you now there\u2019s absolutely no Canadian athlete that will sign it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brassard explains: Not only do the Olympics and Paralympics mean the world to athletes, but the money they make can be tied to Olympic performance. Missing out on a medal, or making the COC look bad, can have a knock-on effect on how their sport is funded, or how they are treated after they retire from competition.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0How social media impacts athletes at the Olympics\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But Brassard, who has distanced himself from the COC after resigning as chef de mission<\/em> prior to the 2016 Games, was willing to sign. \u201cI don\u2019t think it makes any sense that we go to a country that doesn\u2019t respect human rights,\u201d he says. \u201cI know relocation won\u2019t happen. The reason I signed is because it\u2019s sending a message to the IOC: \u2018This is enough.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

If it feels as though the Olympics were only recently navigating talks of a boycott of Beijing, that\u2019s because the Chinese capital is hosting its second Olympics in less than 14 years. In the months leading up to the 2008 Summer Games, similar criticism erupted over China\u2019s crackdown in Tibet. \u201cWe believe the Games are going to move ahead the agenda of social and human rights as far as possible\u2014the Games are going to be a force for good,\u201d then IOC president Jacques Rogge told Reuters in the lead-up to the event.<\/p>\n

Still, once the cauldron was lit, those issues were mostly brushed aside as the focus shifted to sport\u2014a phenomenon some call \u201csportwashing.\u201d By the end, says Mulroney, the former ambassador, \u201call anybody could think about was how great the fireworks were and how amazing the stadiums were. China used those Games as an advertisement for the regime, as it always does.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0China\u2019s mission to Mars opens a new phase of the space race\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Human rights advocates argue that China\u2019s record has only become worse since 2008, and they told the International Olympic Committee as much in the run-up to these Games. But the IOC has portrayed itself as powerless on such issues. \u201cWe have no ability to go into a country and tell them what to do,\u201d IOC vice-president John Coates said at a press conference in October. \u201cAll we can do is award the Olympics to a country, under conditions set out in a host contract . . . and then ensure they are followed.\u201d The IOC\u2019s remit, he added, \u201cis to ensure that there are no human rights abuses in respect of the conduct of the Games within the national Olympic committees or within the Olympic movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 2020 op-ed, IOC president Thomas Bach said the Olympic Games \u201care not about politics,\u201d a stance that has often raised eyebrows. Why, ask critics, would a non-political organization want\u2014and receive\u2014permanent observer status at the United Nations? Rob Koehler, the director general<\/a> for the Montreal-based international advocacy group Global Athlete, points to the IOC\u2019s successful effort alongside the International Ice Hockey Federation to put together a joint North and South Korean hockey team for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games: \u201cIf that\u2019s not political, I\u2019m not sure what is,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Global Athlete is opposed to government-led boycotts, which Koehler says make \u201cpolitical pawns\u201d of the athletes, especially when they have no say in where the Olympics are held. Instead, the organization calls for the IOC to embed the UN\u2019s Universal Declaration of Human Rights into the Olympic Charter as well as the bid documents for future host nations. And he wants governments to stop tiptoeing around the IOC and national Olympic bodies when it comes to advocacy. \u201cWho is the biggest funder of sport in Canada? The Canadian government,\u201d Koehler says. \u201cThey should be putting pressure on the Canadian Olympic Committee to be pushing [the IOC] for reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Don\u2019t buy the hogwash about the release of Kovrig and Spavor\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Instead, some of the most vocal protests have come from a lone Tibetan-Canadian. Released on conditions and back home in Toronto, Chemi Lhamo is calling on companies like Airbnb, Intel and Coca-Cola to drop their sponsorships; for official Olympic broadcasters like the CBC to highlight China\u2019s human rights abuses in their coverage; and for athletes themselves to announce they will not participate.<\/p>\n

Her surprisingly powerful voice should not be underestimated. Nor should her impeccable timing. Lhamo plans to appear in person at her next court date in Greece, which is Feb. 3\u2014the day before the opening ceremonies in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note:<\/b>\u00a0The digital version of this story was updated to include news<\/a> of the U.S. diplomatic boycott after the print version went to press.<\/i><\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the January 2022 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201cWhy are we playing games in China?\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here<\/a>.<\/em>
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