In its annual human rights report released Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) focused on threats to democratic structures around the world.
In an interview with AFP ahead of the annual report released today, the Director-General of the organization, Kenneth Roth, said that China used the winter Olympics to be held in February to cover up its “horrible” human rights record and called for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
The United States (US), the United Kingdom and Canada announced that they declared a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics, which will start on February 4, due to human rights violations, including the treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang region.
Roth also asked other countries to avoid sending their high-level officials to the Olympics. Only this way, Roth said, would it be possible to draw attention to “mass persecution” in the region and China’s curtailment of fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong.
“He closes the oppression with sports”
“The Chinese government is using the Beijing Olympics to cover its tyranny with sports,” Roth said. Roth said he did not call for a boycott of athletes, but said countries “should not pretend everything is normal”. “As a minimum, the international community should participate in the diplomatic boycott of the Olympics,” he said. The director also said that the sponsors of the Olympics should also take a stance at this point and stated that they should draw attention to what happened in Xinjiang instead of justifying what happened.
Roth underlined that it is a moral obligation for companies to resist what is happening. Roth, who said that “every company should do its best to avoid legitimizing the pressures of the Chinese government,” said that Tesla’s decision to open a dealership in the region was “total insensitivity”.
Kenneth Roth said that she is hopeful that the report to be published by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet on human rights violations in the Xinjiang region will inspire a broad coalition that countries will form to raise their voices. He also described the silence of UN Secretary Antonio Guterres, who was planning to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics, and his failure to criticize the Chinese government, as a “big mistake”.
‘Biden seems to have lost his voice’
The organization also criticized U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders for failing to vigorously defend democracy and failing to deal with the climate crisis and the problems posed by the pandemic.
Roth said in the report that Biden made promises to “put human rights at the center of foreign policy” when he took office in January 2021, but continued to sell weapons to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. He said Biden “seems to have lost his voice” when it comes to denouncing serious human rights abuses at key summit talks.
“Other Western leaders show the same weakness in defending democracy,” he said, naming French President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“Germany misjudged the situation in the region”
The organization also criticized Germany’s treatment of civilians in the country while withdrawing from Afghanistan. “Germany has ignored that human rights defenders, journalists and those working there must leave the country before the troops withdraw,” he said. It was stated that government officials blamed each other, misjudged the situation in the region, and endangered the lives of many Afghans. According to the latest data, 20,000 Afghans are still waiting to arrive in Germany.
AFP, rtr, dpa / AI, EC
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