Boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT ?
After the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the 2022 Winter Games will also take place in China, despite the fact that the human rights situation in China has massively deteriorated and that the People's Republic did not keep its promises for respecting human rights in 2008. All hopes and expectations of the IOC and the international community, including Switzerland, that awarding the Games to Beijing would lead to an improvement in the human rights situation, have been severely disappointed.

- As a sign against China's oppression and the Beijing Olympics, protests took place throughout Tibet in 2008. These were violently cracked down by the Chinese security forces. As a result, the surveillance and repression apparatus in Tibet has been massively upgraded.

- Since 2009, over 150 Tibetans have self-immolated in protest against the oppression and illegal Chinese occupation of Tibet. More than half a million Tibetans have become victims of forced labor. Over one million Tibetan nomads have been forcibly relocated.

- In East Turkestan, more than one million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim communities are detained in re-education camps, where they are subjected to political indoctrination and have become victims of serious crimes such as rape, torture and forced sterilization. The detained people are coerced into forced labor in industrial factories. The USA, Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, as well as independent experts, conclude that a genocide of the Uyghur people is underway.

- In Hong Kong, fundamental rights were restricted in a significant way with the introduction of the new National Security Law. Freedom of the press and freedom of expression, as well as the independence of judication, are under immediate threat.