Olympic Games: 20 MPs in China do not want the Games to take place

Twenty aides from all political parties are urging the International Olympic Committee not to hold the 2022 Winter Games as planned in Beijing.

Also read: Shame games

Also read: Hockey Canada: A balanced team for the Olympics

In An open letter entitled “The Games of Shame”, Elected officials are protesting against the fate of the Uyghur minority in China and want games to take place elsewhere in the world if the situation does not change.

“As you read these lines, nearly two million Uyghurs and Turkish Muslims are imprisoned in concentration camps, Chinese authorities do not like to call them ‘vocational training camps’,” we read in a letter sent on Saturday morning.

The letter was joined by black Cubacois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duseppe, elected Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats and Green parties, as well as public figures such as former Olympic champion Jean-Luc Brassard.

Elected representatives of the four political parties in the National Assembly also signed the joint statement.

“Some say we should not mix politics and sports. For that matter, when we face genocide, we are no longer talking about politics here, but about human rights and crimes against humanity. It is impossible for us to accept the status quo, ”they said.

Same game plan

Earlier this week, the Canadian Olympic Committee explicitly rejected calls by the sports director to boycott or move the Games, which has already been heard for months, not just because of the Uyghur issue.

“By moving to Beijing, we have a great opportunity to promote Canadian values ​​and promote change. By participating in the 2022 Olympics, our chances of finally being in the conversation to promote change will be much better. In an interview with the “Journal de Quebec” on Thursday, Eric Miles defended the sport to bring people together.

Not the first

Next year, China will host the Olympics for the second time in history. Already in 2008, there were many voices calling for the Beijing Summer Games to be ignored and the West to be ignored.

The Tibetan occupation was at the heart of the negotiations at the time. Today, they cite the imprisonment of two Canadians instead, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spover, for cracking down on protests in Hong Kong and human rights violations in Xinjiang.

In this autonomous region of northern China, the Uyghur Muslim minority is being persecuted, which has been condemned by many organizations in recent years.

“Women are being forcibly sterilized, adults and children are being kidnapped, artificial intelligence software tracks, surveillance cameras, extremists around the world,” one of the letters adds. On Saturday, elected officials will not hesitate to compare the 2022 Beijing Games. Berlin in 1936 in central Nazi Germany.