Beijing 2022: Uygur group calls for China to lose Winter Games over ‘genocide’

More than a million Uygurs have been herded into internment camps where they undergo political indoctrination, according to rights groups and experts

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People look at sculptures of mascots for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Photo: Du Jianpo/VCG via Getty Images

Published: 10:28am, 31 Jul 2020Updated: 10:49pm, 31 Jul 2020

An overseas-based Uygur group urged the IOC on Thursday to reconsider holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing because of what it says is China’s “genocide” of the Uygur population.

China’s ruling Communist Party is under growing international pressure over the fate of minorities in its northwestern region of Xinjiang.

More than one million ethnic Uygurs and other minorities, mostly Muslim Turkic peoples, have been herded into internment camps where they undergo political indoctrination, according to rights groups and experts.

China says the camps are “vocational education centres” necessary to counter religious extremism and boost employment.

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China hits back at UK claims of forced sterilisations and other human rights abuses against Uygurs

In an open letter to International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, the Munich-based World Uygur Congress (WUC) accused China of “committing genocide, crimes against humanity and torture against the Uygur and other Turkic peoples” in Xinjiang.

“We have so far been greatly disappointed that the International Olympic Committee has not addressed the human rights situation in China since awarding Beijing the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics,” the letter, signed by WUC president Dolkun Isa, said.