Switzerland: Uyghurs, Tibetan activists protest outside Olympic Museum against 2022 Beijing games

Lausanne [Switzerland], June 24 (ANI): Dozens of Uyghurs and Tibetan activists gathered outside the Olympic Museum in Lausanne city here to protest against the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

On the annual International Olympic Day on Wednesday, protesters from Switzerland, France, Germany and Liechtenstein rallied in Lausanne, Euro News reported.

Protesters waved Tibetan and East Turkestan flags and held up placards reading “No rights, no Games” and “Stop genocide Games”.

Demands for some form of boycott of the Beijing Games have been continuously growing.

On the occasion of International Olympic Day, protests were organised in several cities around the world calling for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics amid ongoing Chinese genocide against Uyghur Muslims and the severe repression in Tibet, Southern Mongolia, Hong Kong.

In May, a coalition of human rights groups has called for a complete boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, saying that participating in the games would be tantamount to endorsing China’s genocide against the Uyghur people”.

A coalition, representing Uyghurs, Tibetans, residents of Hong Kong and others, issued a joint statement in May calling for the boycott.

It said that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uyghur people and waging an unprecedented campaign of repression in East Turkistan, Tibet and Southern Mongolia, as well as an all-out assault on democracy in Hong Kong.

China has been rebuked globally for a crackdown on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.

The Chinese government occupied Tibet in 1950 and has ever since tried to control the region, destroying 98 per cent of the monasteries and nunneries.

China is using the same suppression tactics against Tibet that it has been using against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, with about 500,000 Tibetans are now being held in labour camps. (ANI)