Empty original: https://www.univision.com/univision-news/opinion/china-sede-equivocada-olimpiadas-invierno
"El problema no es la asistencia de atletas procedentes del mundo libre (…) El problema de fondo es que los líderes del COI han desarrollado el hábito de seleccionar como sedes a países política y éticamente impresentables".
DANIEL MORCATE
24 ENE 2022
Next week the winter Olympics will begin with an atrocious background of authoritarianism and human rights violations in China. It is courtesy of the International Olympic Committee, whose moral compass has been drifting for a long time. It was inevitable and desirable that voices of protest be raised. The United States and other democratic governments decreed a partial boycott that haggles over diplomatic recognition of the games without prohibiting the participation of their athletes.. It is a Solomonic decision that should be complemented with a wide dissemination of the barbarism carried out by the Chinese hierarchs..
The problem is not the attendance of athletes from the free world. They strive heroically for years to aspire to medals in recognition of their efforts.. The underlying problem is that the IOC leaders have developed the habit of selecting politically and ethically unpresentable countries as venues.. Russia in 1980 while the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. China in 2008 Amid the support from Beijing to Sudan during Sudanese genocide in Darfur. Russia again in 2014 When Moscow pursued opponents and denied elementary rights to the LGBT community. And again China now while their regime brutizes the Uigures, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities, to those who contain in fields of concentration and political indoctrination; Represses Hong Kong's prodemocratic activists; and maintains tyrannical policies in Tibet and Mongolia and aggression against Taiwan, as the intimidating overflow of dozens of military aircraft on Taiwanese territory this Sunday.
The Olympic letter through which the IOC is governed says that games are a way of promoting "respect for universal and ethical principles". But the leaders of the committee Olympically ignore that founding objective. They are too busy getting a headquarters, Any headquarters, that allows competencies to be carried out with a minimum of practical and monetary fattening. In the interim they become suspected of corruptibles. ¿How it explains, but, that have subtracted importance to the recent denunciations of Peng Shuai, The Chinese Tennis Star, that sexually assaulted a communist hierarchy that was on top of the Chinese Olympic Committee; They insist on detracting from sports policy; and that they remain silent in the face of complaints about Beijing's crimes against humanity?
Be that as it may, the evil is done. China is the inevitable host of these Winter Olympics. But one way to mitigate the evil would be to take the opportunity to inform the world about the antisocial and repressive behavior of the Chinese regime.. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch document thousands of political prisoners. Dozens of executions annually. Torture of inmates, including medical personnel who have disclosed data on the real situation of the coronavirus pandemic in China. Thousands of police investigations against doctors and nurses. “Severe and widespread” repression” in the Tibet Autonomous Region under the pretext of “anti-separatism, anti -extremism and fight against terrorism ", According to amnesty.
Olympics coverage also offers the opportunity to duly inform the world about Chinese repression of addemocracy activists and opposition leaders in Hong Kong. And the denial of free association rights, Expression and cult in continental China. Beijing, of course, threatens to retaliate against media that use games as “pretext” To denounce your political crimes. In part that is why some media have decided not to send their journalistic teams to China, but transmit the games from home.
But at this point well documented complaints are the only thing that can counteract the nonsense of having granted the headquarters of the winter Olympics to China. Inside and outside that country, numerous activists play their safety, His freedom and even his life testifying to Beijing's abuse; and its cover -up on the origin and scope of pandemic. Their voices should be part of any Olympic coverage. We cannot expect the IOC to echo his information. Chinese hierarchs have simply taken the calm.
"Politics should not interfere with sports". To that clisé they usually appeal Vladimir Putin and other tyrannuelos of his calaña. But the reality is that both sports and politics are means to look for results, especially victory. The two must be practiced with rules and principles that can be justified morally. And that is what dictatorships like China never do. Nor in sports – where they usually play dirty – much less in politics.
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