ACTIVISTS TURN UP THE HEAT ON OLYMPIC BROADCASTERS, URGING THEY DROP DEALS TO AIR BEIJING 2022 OLYMPICS — CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY (CCP’S) “GENOCIDE GAMES”

STOP - NBC, BBC, CBC, Sky, Discovery, and Eurosport among top broadcasters targeted by more than 200 campaign groups

San Francisco, December 2, 2021 — With just two months until the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, activists across the globe are lobbying Olympic broadcasters—including NBC, BBC, CBC, and Sky—to “immediately cancel broadcasting deals” to telecast the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, or face a serious risk of being complicit in CCP China’s plan to “sport wash” [1] their severe and worsening human rights abuses.

The public letter [2], signed by a coalition of over 200 Tibetan, Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Chinese democracy, and human rights campaign groups, outlines the stark hypocrisy of media companies’ human rights policies that claim to promote and protect individuals. [3] The reality is that Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hongkongers, Southern Mongolians, and Chinese people live under some of the worst oppression the world has ever seen.

On December 10, International Human Rights Day, join us to urge NBC to do the RIGHT THING and NOT broadcast the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games (CCP’s Genocide Games). We demand that the IOC do the RIGHT THING by moving the 2022 Winter Olympics from Beijing.

A coalition of 13 human rights organizations will march peacefully from the NBC office to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco.

Calling the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics the “CCP’s Genocide Games,” Tao Tenzing Dhamcho of International Tibet Network and a Tibetan Californian states:

“This broadcast will legitimize the Chinese government’s exceptionally repressive policies and atrocious human rights record.”

He urges world leaders and nations to respond strongly and boycott these games, sending a clear message to the CCP regime. He also calls on the IOC to follow the example of the WTA and suspend the Olympic Games until athletes such as Peng Shuai are known to be safe and free from censorship.

Giovanni Vassallo of Bay Area Friends of Tibet states:

“The broadcast of these games will further embolden the Chinese authorities to continue carrying out gross human rights atrocities against the Tibetan people and genocide against the Uyghur people.”

“Tibetans have never been a part of China, and now they are a minority in their own country,” states Lobsang Choden, a local Tibetan and member of the Tibetan Youth Congress.

She adds:

“Chinese repression has led to over 150 Tibetans self-immolating themselves, and it is criminal to possess a picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”

Ken Chan of the San Francisco Hong Konger group and Kevin Young of Santa Barbara Friends of Tibet state:

“We are encouraged to see a growing number of Western democracies, including the U.S. government, considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games. We appeal to broadcasters such as NBC and corporate sponsors of the Games to do the RIGHT THING and not risk being seen as complicit in these human rights atrocities.”

Kunga Gaton, President of the Tibetan Association of Northern California, states:

“Beijing has no right to host the Olympic Games, and shame on the IOC for awarding the Games to Beijing, because Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hongkongers, and other ethnic groups have no human rights, no freedom of religion, and no peace.”

CONTACTS

Tao Tenzing Dhamcho International Tibet Network 310-658-6776 TaoDhamcho@gmail.com

Giovanni Vassallo Bay Area Friends of Tibet 415-264-3264 Giovanni@friends-of-tibet.org

Lobsang Choden San Francisco Regional Tibetan Youth Congress 857-615-0046 SFRTYC@gmail.com

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NBC-Olympics-2022-press-release.pdf

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NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. “Sports washing” is the practice of an individual, group, corporation, or nation-state using sport to improve its reputation, through hosting a sporting event, the purchase or sponsorship of sporting teams, or by participation in the sport itself. At the nation-state level, sports washing has been used to direct attention away from a poor human rights record. While at the individual or Corporate level sports washing is used to cover up and direct away attention from said person's or company's vices, crimes, or scandals.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing

2. Letter can be viewed at: https://tibetnetwork.org/200-rights-groups-call-on-broadcasters-to-drop-beijing-2022-2/

3. Examples include: CBC, https://site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/media/2877/code-conduct-en.pdf; BBC, https://www.bbcstudios.com/ethical-policy/; SKY, https://www.skygroup.sky/bigger-picture/better-business; NBC, ttps://www.nbcuniversal.com/article/comcast-announces-100-million-multiyear-plan-advance-social-justice-andequality; Discovery, https://www.discovery.co.za/assets/discoverycoza/corporate/legal/human-rights-policywebsite-version.pdf The situation in occupied Tibet has dramatically deteriorated and in 2021 it was ranked by Freedom House as the least free place in the world for civil and political rights, alongside Syria.

https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores?sort=asc&order=Total%20Score%20and%20Status;

- In Hong Kong, where Beijing has implemented a draconian National Security Law that bans acts of “splittism, subversion, foreign intervention, and terrorism”, freedom and democracy are under attack, and youth activists are being rounded up and imprisoned en masse https://unpo.org/article/22064;

- In mainland China, the Chinese authorities routinely disappear government critics, feminists, and academics, as they attempt to stifle all forms of peaceful dissent. At the same time, Beijing has intensified its decades-long tactics of geopolitical bullying and intimidation of democratic Taiwan. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/04/1025774/china-tiananmen-anniversary-protest-censorship/; https://in.news.yahoo.com/chinas-bullying-aggression-becoming-more-002815497.html

4. MPs in House of Commons support a diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympics in China, https://www.skysports.com/olympics/news/15234/12356751/beijing-2022-mps-in-house-of-commons-supportdiplomatic-boycott-of-next-years-winter-olympics-in-china; European Parliament votes to boycott Beijing Winter Olympics, https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/09/european-parliament-votes-to-boycott-beijing-winter-olympics; ‘Canadians won’t be safe at 2022 Beijing 7Winter Olympic, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/olympicscanadian-athletes-boycott-china-b1901766.html; Czech Senate Calls for Political Boycott of Winter Olympics in China,https://praguemorning.cz/czech-senate-calls-for-political-boycott-of-winter-olympics-in-china/; IPAC coordinates legislative actions on Beijing Olympics across 11 parliaments: https://ipac.global/ipac-coordinateslegislative-actions-across-11-parliaments-on-beijing-olympics/