20 UK parliamentarians slam ‘olympics of shame’ as winter games kick off in Beijing

The legislators, all members of the cross-party Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), said in a statement: “We cannot stand idly by while a major world government perpetrates what a growing number of legal investigations believe to be Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, and torture in the Uyghur Region.”

“International sporting events ought to be remembered for their moments of extraordinary human achievement and international unity. The Beijing 2022 Olympics will rightly be remembered with shame,” they went on.

The legislators noted that many governments had answered calls made by IPAC to stage a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, but called for further action including import bans on goods made with forced labour and blocks on investments in entities perpetrating human rights abuses in the Uyghur Region.

Prominent signatories to the letter include Senator Jeff Merkley, Chair of the US Congressional Executive Commission on China; Reinhard Bütikofer, Chair of the European Parliament’s China delegation and Sir Iain Duncan-Smith MP, former leader of the UK Conservative Party.

IPAC Co-Chair Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP said: “While the world watches the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony the Genocide against the Uyghurs continues and brave young pro-democracy activists remain locked up in Hong Kong jails. These Games truly will be remembered as the Chinese Communist Party’s Olympics of shame.”

“It is right that the British government and other world leaders are staying away from the Games, but we must be doing much more. We must be acting to stop goods made with Uyghur forced labour entering our markets and must stop our banks from pumping dirty money into the perpetrators of the abuses.”

IPAC MEP and former world record breaking paralympian David Lega said: “While it is right that athletes should take part in the Games, we as parliamentarians cannot stay silent while the Chinese government perpetrates human rights abuses on an industrial scale. It is our responsibility to call out the Chinese government’s violations of international law in the Uyghur Region, Hong Kong and elsewhere in China, and will continue to speak up for those who have been silenced by this authoritarian regime.”

Marie Rimmer, IPAC Member and UK Labour Party MP said: “The founding principle of the Olympic charter is to ‘preserve human dignity’. Nowhere could this be further from the truth than the Uyghur Region, where Uyghurs and other groups are subjected to state-sponsored forced labour, sexual abuse and mass internment. The Chinese government hopes to use the Beijing Olympics to distract from these abuses. It is right that the UK has joined the diplomatic boycott of the Games, but this is not enough. Uyghur forced labour goods cannot be allowed to enter the UK market and our banks must stop financing the perpetrators of these abuses.”