The Belgium-based International Trade Union Confederation issued its report Tuesday — “China: A gold medal for repression” — highlighting human rights violations. It said a copy has been sent to IOC President Thomas Bach. The alleged abuses include: forced labor, jailing of trade unionists and democracy defenders in Hong Kong, intimidation of the nation’s LBGTI community, and repression of ethnic and religious minorities under the pretext of ”anti-separatism and counterterrorism.”
“We’re trying to get the IOC to act on a basic set of principles around human rights,” Sharan Burrow, the general secretary of the ITUC, told the Associated Press in an interview. “We want governments to take a stand in defense of their own athletes’ safety, and we want sponsors to actually review their association with the Beijing Winter Olympics,” she added. “You’ve got major companies who are supporting these Olympics who really ought to live up to values that they say they respect, which is fundamental human rights.”
Some of the largest sponsors who collectively pay billions to the IOC include household names like Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Visa, Toyota, Alibaba, and Proctor & Gamble.
