Call for a Diplomatic Boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics

Prague, Czech Republic
January 20, 2022

We, the undersigned members of the International Coalition for Democratic Renewal, call on democratic governments and on representatives of international institutions not to send official political representation to the 2022 Winter Olympics and to diplomatically boycott the Games.

Starting February 4, the Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing, China, a country where blatant human rights violations are taking place. Abuses are being committed daily against the Uyghurs, the people of Hong Kong, Tibet and countless other Chinese citizens, whose freedom and dignity are being attacked by the CCP Government. In Xinjiang, at least two million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are involuntarily detained in so-called “re-education camps“, there is evidence that Uyghurs are used as forced labour and women are forcibly sterilised. Further concerns have been raised over the disappearance of tennis player Peng Shuai from the public view in November 2021, with a number of Chinese lawyers, journalists and activists also being detained and citizens subjected to excessive surveillance through sophisticated technology. In addition, China is also intensifying military threats and intimidation against Taiwan.

As other countries generally have very limited influence over China's domestic human rights practices, the Olympic Games present a rare opportunity to bring human rights abuses in China into the spotlight and send a clear message to all authoritarians, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as well as other top international sporting bodies, that human rights and human dignity matter.

We call on all democratic states to follow the lead of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries that have already announced a diplomatic boycott of the competition. We also call on the IOC, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), International Tennis Federation (ITF), International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and other top international sporting bodies to no longer give authoritarian states that violate basic human rights the opportunity to host important international sporting events and thus legitimize their repressive regimes.

Signatories:

  • Michael Abramowitz, President, Freedom House
  • Eric Bjornlund, President and CEO, Democracy International
  • Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, Germany
  • Adem Carroll, Justice for All, Burma, Myanmar
  • Brett L. Carter, Hoover Fellow, Stanford University, USA
  • Srdjan Darmanovic, University Professor, University of Montenegro, Faculty of Political Science
  • Carl Gershman, Former President, National Endowment for Democracy, USA
  • Sascha Hannig Nuñez, Researcher, Instituto de desafíos de la Democracia, Chile
  • Hasler Iglesias, Member - National Committee, Voluntad Popular, Venezuela
  • Dolkun Isa, President, World Uyghur Congress, East Turkistan
  • Garry Kasparov, Chess Champion and Pro-democracy Advocate, Russia
  • Hisham Kassem, Former Chairman, Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Egypt
  • Tinatin Khidasheli, Chairperson, Civic IDEA, Georgia
  • Jakub Klepal, Executive Director, Forum 2000, Czech Republic
  • Ondřej Klimeš, Sinologist, Czech Republic
  • David Kramer, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights & Labor
  • Yiwu Liao, Occupation Writer, Poet, Musician, Germany/China
  • Tania Stefanía López Lizca, Legislative Advisor, Congress of the Republic of Colombia, Cofounder, Latin American Youth Network for Democracy, Colombia
  • Anar Mammadli, Chairperson, Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center, Azerbaijan
  • Myroslav Marynovych, Vice-Rector, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv), Ukraine
  • Joshua Muravchik, Adjunct Professor, Institute of World Politics (Washington, DC), USA
  • Ahmad Farouk Musa, Director, Islamic Renaissance Front, Malaysia
  • Ucha Nanuashvili, Director, Democracy Research Institute (DRI)
  • Andrea Ngombet, Founder, Sassoufit Collective, Republic of the Congo
  • Wai Wai Nu, Founder and Executive Director, Women's Peace Network, Myanmar
  • Martin Palouš, Director of Václav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy, Florida International University
  • Pavel Pšeja, University Lecturer, Metropolitan University Prague, Czech Republic
  • Mykola Riabchuk, Writer, Honorary President, Ukrainian PEN Center, Ukraine
  • Andrei Sannikov, Chairman, European Belarus Foundation, Belarus
  • Hugh Segal, Mathews Fellow, Global Public Policy, Queen's University, Canada
  • Gulnara Shahinian, Chair, Former UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery 2008-2015, Democracy Today, Armenia
  • Jianli Yang, President & Founder, Citizen Power Initiatives for China, China
  • Leyla Yunus, Director, Institute for Peace and Democracy, Netherlands
  • Michael Žantovský, Executive Director, Vaclav Havel Library, Czech Republic
  • Misha Zelinsky, Fulbright Scholar, Australia
  • Yevgeniy Zhovtis, Director, Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Kazakhstan