British Prime Minister John Johnson said Thursday (Feb. 25) that the persecution of the Uighur minority by the Chinese Communist Party in Xinjiang was genocide and that Britain would launch an international campaign at the United Nations to hold China accountable.
But Johnson also said Britain would not boycott China’s hosting of the 2022 Winter Olympics as a result.
Johnson made the remarks in response to a question from Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey during a debate in the British House of Commons.
Sir Davey asked, “Does the Prime Minister agree with me that unless China ends this genocide, Britain and British athletes should boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, China?”
Johnson replied, “(Sir David) is absolutely right to highlight the horrific campaign of persecution of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, which is why the Foreign Secretary has put in place a package of measures to ban all British companies from illegally participating in (the trade in) or profiting from the products of forced labor in Xinjiang.”
Johnson said the U.K. will continue to work with the U.S. and the rest of the world to hold China accountable for the Xinjiang issue.
Johnson also said, “In this country we do not normally endorse sporting boycotts, and that has always been the position of the British government.”
The British Olympic Association expressed support for Johnson’s decision. A spokesman for the association said, “We do not believe that boycotting the Winter Olympics is the right choice. We believe that the athletes who have been putting their best efforts into training for this event should go to the competition and should represent this country.”
The spokesman added, “We saw in Moscow in 1980 that sports boycotts don’t work. They punished the athletes and those larger political issues were not addressed or focused on as a result.”
The BBC reported that Sir David wrote separately to the heads of the British Olympic Association and the British Paralympic Association, appealing to them not to send athletes to the Games unless China closes the Xinjiang internment camps and ends its “ethnic cleansing campaign” against the Uyghurs.
Sir David also called on the Chinese Communist Party to end human rights abuses such as the enslavement of Uyghurs, torture to extract confessions and sexual assault.
The Chinese Communist Party has vehemently denied allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghurs, calling the camps in Xinjiang “vocational Education and training centers.
However, more than 180 organizations around the world have called on governments to boycott the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. The World Uighur Congress has called the Winter Olympics a “genocidal Olympics.
Recent Comments