WASHINGTON, DC — Dozens of activists protested on the National Mall against the Chinese Communist Party and the genocide of ethnic minorities, calling for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to be moved.
The coalition of activist groups at Tuesday’s rally in front of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., opposed what they called the “Genocide Games.” Groups such as Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, the Committee on the Present Danger: China, and Save the Persecuted Christians protested the planned location for the 2022 Olympic Games.
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Protesters spoke at a podium in front of the crowd in Tuesday’s 94-degree heat, handing out “No CCP Genocide Games!” umbrellas so people could have some shade.
Nothing short of a full-location change will suffice given the “forced abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide, the breaking apart of families” the CCP forces upon minorities, Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, who spoke at the event, told the Washington Examiner.
Anything less than making such a demand is the equivalent of a “free pass,” she said, though the European Parliament approved a resolution calling for a diplomatic boycott of the games earlier in July. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin condemned the move, calling it “politicization of sports.”
“They still have the opportunity for this glorious opening ceremony, and they’re still going to use it to promote their propaganda about themselves all over the world. The only thing that’s going to stop that is a complete boycott of the games,” Littlejohn said, explaining why a diplomatic boycott wouldn’t be enough.
Keith Ware, one of the supporters at the rally, identified himself as a Falun Gong practitioner and told the Washington Examiner he had personally been “arrested, detained, and tortured by the CCP in China” for a period of time around 2003.
He wants to support any institution taking on the CCP, though he does not feel a strong connection to the Olympic boycott in particular.
To achieve the activists’ goal, they will have to convince legislators and the executive branch to proceed, though the Biden administration said in April it was “not discussing any joint boycotts with allies and partners.”
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Several practitioners had their organs harvested in China against their will, Ware said.
Enghebatu Togochog, the director of the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, told the Washington Examiner U.S. politicians need to “wake up” when it comes to human rights abuses, as what they’re doing is “far from enough.”
