Calls to boycott the 2022 Chinese Winter Olympics have increased because of the barbaric treatment of the Uyghur Muslims. One million women are estimated to have suffered rape, torture and forced abortions in state-run Chinese prison camps.
Rahima Mahmut, an activist for the World Uyghur Congress, has expressed her anger at the blind eye the world has turned to human rights abuses in China.
“The Berlin Olympics in 1936 – the signs were there”, she said. “They were criminalising the Jews. The Holocaust hadn’t happened by then, but it could have been prevented.
“Now we have all this information about what is happening in China. There is drone footage, classified documents that have been leaked, academic research, survivor testimonies.
“We have this now. The world cannot say it did not know.”
Despite the outcry, the 2022 Chinese Winter Olympics are set to begin on 4 February. The International Olympic Committee has excused itself, stating that it is “beyond all political disputes”.
Forced abortion and sterilisation
SPUC has previously reported on the inhumane treatment that Uyghur women are subject to in Chinese prison camps, including forced abortion and sterilisation.
Mahmut, herself a survivor of Chinese prison camps, has lost contact with her brothers and sisters, whom she believes are currently detained by the Chinese government without trial and for an indefinite period.
Mahmut said: “Millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and many other Turkic Muslims are enduring intense, unspeakable terror. Families are being torn apart, children taken away, millions of women sterilised and forced abortions. It is happening now.
“Repeatedly the World Uyghur Congress has given the International Olympic Committee detailed information about what is happening and requesting that a country committing such atrocities shouldn’t be honoured to host the Olympics.”
“An atrocity”
SPUC’s Michael Robinson, Executive Director (Public Affairs and Legal Services), said: “Abortion is a form of gender-based violence that cannot be tolerated – yet still it continues to blight our world and further devalue women and human life every day.
“This isn’t simply a ‘political dispute’. It is an atrocity.
“Forced abortion is one of the worst things that can be done to a woman. Cases such as these should cause shock and outrage around the globe, and countries performing this terrible act of oppression should not be rewarded with the right to host high-profile and lucrative international events such as the Winter Olympics.”