Last week, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., sent a letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach following the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to ban the nation of Russia from competing in Olympic Games, but still allowing China to host the 2022 Olympic Games.
For more than a year, Scott has been calling on the Committee to urge China to stop violating human rights or find a new home for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
Scott’s letter is below.
Dear President Bach:
I write today about the recent decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to ban Russia from participating in international sporting events through 2022 because of the country’s doping practices. I understand that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was an intervening party in CAS’s case, and I appreciate your desire to hold those accountable for unfair and unsportsmanlike conduct.
However, I cannot understand why the IOC is comfortable punishing Russia for failing to comply with rules, while allowing Communist China, who continues to commit a genocide against the Uyghurs, to host the 2022 Olympic Games.
As you are aware, Communist China is committing a genocide against the Uyghur population living in Xinjiang. More than one million Uyghurs are detained in concentration camps designed to erase the religious and ethnic cultural identities of the Uyghurs. Through torture, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) threatens Uyghurs to forsake their language, their faith and their culture. Uyghur women are forcibly sterilized and have intrauterine devices placed inside them to prevent more births of Uyghurs. Some have abortions forcibly performed on them. Those who are not being tortured inside the camps work as slave laborers in factories.
Why would the IOC want to punish Russia for doping, but refuse to take a stand against Communist China’s genocide? Why would the IOC go after Russians for consuming illicit drugs, yet remain silent while the country hosting the 2022 Olympic Games is enslaving, torturing, and harvesting the organs of millions of its citizens?
The IOC has a mandate to uphold the principles of Olympism, including social responsibility and preservation of human dignity. Right now, the IOC is failing to live up it to its own principles and its own mandate. If the Executive Board does not act by moving the 2022 Games to a country that actually respects human rights, then history will place the 2022 Beijing Games next to the 1936 Berlin Games as a platform to congratulate murderous dictators.
