The International Olympic Committee has defended China and excused its genocide of the Uyghurs while claiming to be nonpolitical. Now, the IOC is planning to look the other way while Olympic merchandise is potentially being made with forced labor.
The Coalition to End Forced Labor in the Uyghur Region has been trying to organize a meeting with the IOC to determine what the organization is doing to ensure that Olympic merchandise isn’t being made with forced labor. After a lot of hemming and hawing, the IOC agreed to “an active listening exercise” that would have to remain completely private. Then the organization canceled it.
The IOC had previously granted a uniform contract to a Chinese company that boasts about using cotton from Xinjiang, which is tied to Uyghur forced labor. And, though the IOC is willing to punish Belarus for its authoritarianism and punish Taiwan for wanting to call itself Taiwan, it refuses to say an ill word about China, arguing that the organization doesn’t participate in “politics.”
But the collection of wealthy IOC members only plays politics, prioritizing lavish benefits over basic human rights. That’s why the organization repeatedly grants events to China while throwing its weight around against small countries such as Belarus. That’s why the IOC censors Taiwan and strips it of its identity while China can commit genocide and fill Olympic contracts with slave labor without a second guess.
The IOC priced Norway out of bidding for the 2022 games over the demands that IOC members be treated like royalty, including separate lanes on all roads that IOC members will travel and IOC President (and Chinese propagandist) Thomas Bach being “ceremoniously welcomed” on the runway when he arrives. If that means a few thousand Uyghurs are forced to make some Olympic merchandise amid the forced abortions and sterilization that China is imposing on them, so be it.
Bach and the IOC played an active part in covering for the Chinese Communist Party as it silenced tennis player Peng Shuai. The IOC members surrendered their souls for China’s money long ago, and they will turn around and hand China another Olympic event, given that world leaders are too nonchalant to punish them with a real, full-scale boycott.
