Open Letter to the U.S. Olympic Committee

Posted on 2021-05-09 by wrchina

April 15, 2021

Initiated by the Current Risk Committee: China and Women’s Rights Without Borders, more than 100 organizations including Women’s Rights in China jointly initiated an open letter to stop the CCP genocide campaign, calling on the U.S Olympic Committee to boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games.

Ms. Susanne Lyons
Chairman
U.S. Olympic Committee
27 S Tejon St.
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Re: Stop the 2022 Genocide Games

Dear Ms. Lyons:

In 1936, the Olympic Games were held in Berlin, Germany. Predictably, they proved to be an enormous propaganda windfall for Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, affording it unwarranted international prestige, legitimacy and credibility. Arguably, these benefits served as a smokescreen for the horrific crimes against humanity that the Nazi regime subsequently unleashed in its genocidal Holocaust against 6 million Jews and in the course of the world war Hitler precipitated.

Today, we are confronting another totalitarian regime actively engaging in, among crimes against humanity, another genocide. Yet, as of now, the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) and its international counterpart are preparing to enable the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to receive and exploit a propaganda bonanza that will make what the Nazis enjoyed pale by comparison. That must not happen.

As you know, the United States government has determined that the CCP is genocidally oppressing millions of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the region of western China they call East Turkistan and the Chinese Communists have branded Xinjiang. At least one million of these victims are incarcerated in scores of concentration camps, some replete with crematoria, where they are being brainwashed, raped, forcibly aborted and sterilized, tortured, organ-harvested and forced to perform slave labor. Is that acceptable to the U.S. Olympic Committee? Would your organization want to be associated with, let alone be seen as condoning, such barbaric behavior?

The U.S. government has prohibited the importation of cotton produced in East Turkistan lest American consumers unwittingly support the CCP’s slave labor practices. Western companies in China that are complying with this requirement – including some that are sponsors of the 2022 Beijing Olympics – are being punished by the Chinese government for such compliance. Does the U.S. Olympic Committee really want to side with China’s slave-masters?

That would especially be the case since the PRC has given no indication that it will abandon the genocidal oppression of Uyghurs and others, let alone dismantle the massive infrastructure used for this purpose. Rather, the CCP will no doubt exploit the “Genocide Games” as proof that the world is indifferent to, if not actually implicitly endorsing, its crimes against humanity.

If the Chinese Communist Party’s systematic oppression of those enslaved in its Captive Nations – including not only Uyghurs, but Tibetans, Southern Mongolians and the people of Hong Kong – were not bad enough, countless millions of Chinese citizens are also victims of the CCP. China employs the world’s most comprehensive state surveillance and a repressive “social credit system” to ensure their submission. Were a Beijing Olympics to occur next year, athletes, international staff and visitors would all be subjected to these invasive and coercive totalitarian techniques, as well.

In addition, Olympians would effectively be legitimating the CCP’s assiduous persecution of millions of religious believers. Millions of Chinese Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and Muslims are among those who have been subjected to CCP imprisonment, torture and executions in the last several decades.

Then there is the matter of the Chinese Communist Party’s involuntary extraction of vital organs. Eminent international human rights experts have found that forced organ harvesting is taking place in the PRC on an industrial scale. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of China’s own people, ethnic and religious minorities and prisoners of conscience have been murdered to profit the CCP. Is the U.S. Olympic Committee willing to associate with the perpetrators of these crimes?

The CCP is the perpetrator of the murderous One Child Policy, through which they have “prevented” 400 million lives through forced abortion, involuntary sterilization, forced contraception and infanticide. Because of son preference, tens of millions of baby girls have been selectively aborted. Forced abortion and sex-selective abortion continue in China under the Two Child Policy. There are now 30 to 40 million more men living in China than women, leading to rampant sex trafficking, forced marriage and sexual slavery. Is it fair to female athletes to force them to compete on Chinese soil, where females are rampantly subjected to the most violent forms of sexual violence?

Communist China is also guilty of unrivaled environmental predations, to the great detriment of both its own people’s health and safety and those of others downwind or downstream from, for example, the CCP’s toxic pollution, damning of rivers and devastating overfishing of international waters. Is your Committee prepared to ignore such irresponsible conduct, to say nothing of subjecting American athletes, USOC personnel and attendees to China’s potentially hazardous environmental conditions?

Finally, holding the 2022 Olympics in Beijing would amount to a vindication of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to avoid responsibility for the ongoing, murderous coronavirus pandemic that emanated from Wuhan and was then deliberately spread around the world, thanks to the PRC allowing international flights to continue after severely restricting domestic travel. Again, the question occurs: Does the USOC wish to be remembered as standing with the millions of American and other victims of the CCP virus or with those who unleashed it?

For all these reasons, we – the undersigned members of the Committee on the Present Danger: China and leaders of the international human rights community who also stand against the Chinese Communists’ ongoing genocide and other crimes – call upon the U.S. Olympic Committee to lead an urgent international effort to relocate the 2022 Winter Games to another venue in this country or elsewhere, providing a “Freedom Olympics” alternative to the “Genocide Olympics.” Failing that, you are on notice that we will bend every effort to boycott the Games.

We remind you that the 2020 Olympic Charter states: “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Honoring arguably the greatest human rights abuser in the world with the privilege of hosting the Olympics runs directly counter to the Olympic Charter. Holding the Games in Beijing does a tremendous disservice to athletes, who do not want their desire to prove themselves the world’s best to be put in the service of the world’s worst oppressors.

Moreover, under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, to which both China and the United States are parties, the official designation of CCP genocide by the U.S. government requires that we “punish” the offending regime. Specifically, Article 1 of that binding international treaty states: “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”

We are, therefore, obliged at a minimum not to reward the Chinese Communist Party with hosting perhaps the most prestigious international event in the world. Instead, we should recognize the CCP as the Transnational Criminal Organization it is and treat it accordingly.

Please advise us at the earliest possible moment whether you and the rest of the U.S. Olympic Committee will stand with us or with the genocidal Chinese Communist Party. If we do not hear within ten days of the date of this letter that you are pressing the IOC to move the Games, we will press for a boycott.

Sincerely,

Brian Kennedy
Chairman
Committee on the Present Danger: China

Reggie Littlejohn
Founder and President
Women’s Rights Without Frontiers

cc:

International Olympic Committee
President Joe Biden
Vice President Kamala Harris
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken
National Security Advisor to the President Jake Sullivan
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member James Risch
House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Greg Meeks
House Committee on Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Michael McCaul
Tom Lantos Commission
International Religious Freedom Caucus
Congressional-Executive Commission on China
Worldwide Corporate Sponsors of the 2022 Olympics:

Airbnb
Alibaba Group
Allianz
Atos
Bridgestone
Coca-Cola
Dow Chemical
General Electric
Intel
Omega
Panasonic
Proctor & Gamble
Samsung
Toyota
Visa, Inc.

Additional Signatories: (110 Signatures)

Carrie Abbott, President, The Legacy Institute
Theodore Baehr, Chairman, MOVIEGUIDE®
Ryan Bomberger, Chief Creative Officer, The Radiance Foundation
Kim Bongiornro, Co-founder, Moral Action Ministry
Shenan J. Boquet, President, Human Life International
Andi Buerger, Founder, Voices Against Trafficking
Douglas Burton, Senior editor, RuralWatch.News
Ann Buwalda, Executive Director, Jubilee Campaign USA
Yaxue Cao, Director and Editor, China Change
Chris Chappell, Host, China Uncensored
Guangcheng Chen, Human Rights Activist, Author, Barefoot Lawyer
M K Cheng, Advocate, Democracy for Hong Kong in the UK Union
Samul Spurgeon Babu Chuttugalla, Pastor, Youth Gospel Crusade
Bill Clark, NW Director, Peace Catalyst International
Ellie Cohanim, Signing in her Individual Capacity
Anders Corr, Publisher, Journal of Political Risk
Blanquita Cullum, Co-Founder, Voices Against Trafficking
Kelley Currie, Signing in her Individual Capacity
Peggy Dau, Representative, IranAliveMinistries
Stefania Della Santa, Missionary, Associazione L’ONDA
Paula DeSutter, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Tendere’ Veritas Consulting
HatginDolgion, President, Inner Mongolian People’s Party
Gunnery Sergeant Jessie Jane Duff, US Marine Corps (Ret.), Military Advisor, Committee Present Danger: China
Nicholas Eberstadt, Signing in his Individual Capacity
Stephen Enada, President, International Committee on Nigeria
Rev. Andudu Adam Elnail, Bishop, Co-leader of the GAFCON Suffering Church Network
Charles Faddis, Senior Partner, Artemis
Joseph Farah, Founder and CEO, World Net Daily
Willy Fautre, Founder and Director, Human Rights Without Frontiers
Kevin Freeman, Founder, NSIC Institute
Bob Fu, Founder and President, ChinaAid
Frank Gaffney, Vice Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China
Lela Gilbert, Sr. Fellow for Int’l Religious Freedom, Family Research Council
Sasha Gong, Signing in her personal capacity
Ethan Gutmann, Signing in his Individual Capacity
Bryan Hickox, Chairman, The Jesus Alliance
Joyce Ho, Founder and Director, Project Black Mask HK
Walter Hoye, CEO, Issues4Life Foundation
Salih Hudayar, Founder & President, East Turkistan National Awakening Movement
Dolkun Isa, President, World Uyghur Congress
Charles Jacobs, President, Americans for Peace and Tolerance
Steve Jalsevac, President, LifeSiteNews.com
Kevin Jessip, Chairman, Save the Persecuted Christians
Sheryl Kaufman, Board Member, Americans for Limited Government
David Kilgour, Member (Ret.), Canadian Parliament
Se Hoon Kim, Director, Captive Nations Coalition (CNC)
Gordon Klingenschmitt, Chaplain, The Pray In Jesus Name Project
IlshatKokbore, Director of Chinese affairs department, World Uyghur Congress
Al Kresta, President & CEO, Ave Maria Radio
Tash Lamsang, President, Tibetan Youth Congress NY&NJ
Ann Lau, Chair, Visual Artists Guild
Dede Laugesen, Executive Director, Save the Persecuted Christians
Chung Hang Baggio Leung, Former Members of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, HK Legislative Council
Sean Lin, Executive Director, Truth Warrior Alliance
Ted Lipien, President, Free Media Online
Clare Lopez, Signing in her personal capacity
Carnes Lord, Professor of Strategic Leadership, US Naval War College
Robert Maness, CEO, Iron Liberty Group LLC
Richard Manning, President, Americans for Limited Government
Bradley Mattes, President, Life Issues Institute
Faith McDonnell, Director of Advocacy, Katartismos Global (KGI Global)
Jill McElya, President, Invisible Girl Project
Eric Metaxas, President and Founder, Socrates in the City
John Mills, Former Director, Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs, Retired – Department of Defense
Janet Morana, Executive Director, Priests For Life
Allen Morris, Executive Director, Concerned Methodists
Anne Morse, signing in my individual capacity
Steve Mosher, President, Population Research Institute
Maura Moynihan, Author, researcher, Tibet Policy Group
Troy Newman, President, Operation Rescue
Ayman Abdel Nour, President, Syrian Christians for peace
Elizabeth Nowrasteh, Screenwriter, The Stoning of Soraya M. And The Young Messiah
Jenny Noyes, Executive Director, New Wineskins Missionary Network
Ghulam Osman, President, East Turkistan Government in Exile
George Parker, Executive Director, Revealing Light Ministries
Jorge Parrott, President, Christ’s Mandate for Missions
Janet Parshall, Nationally Syndicated Talk Show Host/Author, In The Market with Janet Parshall
Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
Bart Peacher, Founder/President, It Is Time Israel
Paul Pickern, CEO, All Pro Pastors International
Mike Ramirez, Event Coordinator, San Antonio, Texas Patriots’ Group
Shakeel Raphael, Director, Free Nadeem Samson
Tenzin Sampho, Represent, US-Tibet Committee
Suzanne Scholte, President, Defense Forum Foundation
Donald Shenk, Director, Gospel Tide Broadcasting Association
Deborah Sigmund, Founder & Executive Director, Innocents at Risk
Terese Simpson, Signing in her Individual Capacity
Mark Singer, Co-founder, Moral Action Ministry
Chris Smith, Co-Chair, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
Molly Smith, President, Cleveland Right to Life
GaniStambekov, President, Free Kazakhs
Patricia Streeter, Co-leader, Anglican Persecuted Church Network
Carol Swain, President, Be the People Project
Juliana Taimoorazy, Founder and President, Iraqi Christian Relief Council
Biao Teng, President, China Against the Death Penalty
Bradley Thayer, Professor, CPDC Advisor
EnghebatuTogochog, President, Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center
Quoc-Hung Tran MD, Vice President, Vietnam Democracy Center
Bill Walton, Host, The Bill Walton Show
Dan Wang, Student Leader, Tiananmen Square Pro-Democracy Movement
George Weigel, signing in his individual capacity
John-Henry Westen, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, LifeSite News
Frank Wolf, Member of Congress 1981-2014, retired
Jianli Yang, President, Citizen Power Initiatives for China
Elizabeth Yore, Esq., Founder, YoreChildren
Gong Yi Yuan, Chairman, Hong Kong Freedom Beacon Inc.
Maria Zack, President, Nations in Action
Jing Zhang, Executive Director, Women’s Rights in China
Lin Zhang, Writer, Liberty China
Fengsuo Zhou, Founder and President, Humanitarian China

「集中營受難者家屬平台」發起人之一的美由娜．納孜迷（中）2021年4月5日引領群眾在中國駐伊斯坦堡總領事館外示威。（中央社）

Behind the Spectacle: Women’s Human Rights in China

Posted on 2012-03-24 by wrchina

WRIC 3-20-2012

During China’s bid for the Olympics in 2001, Beijing Olympic official Liu Jingmin stated that the 2008 Olympic games would be “an opportunity to foster democracy, improve human rights, and integrate China with the rest of the world.” China’s leaders want the world to see a city, a country, and a people that represent the nation of the future. Beijing has undergone breath-taking modernization in preparation for these 2008 Games and the entire country has put its best foot forward.

But behind the Olympic spectacle, what is the reality in China for women, their health, reproductive rights, and human rights?

Human rights activists warn that China is a totalitarian state that has used free markets to fuel economic growth, lift hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty, and attempt to demonstrate that a strict one-party Communist system of rule can be as beneficial as a democratic system–all while using these mechanisms to control every aspect of the behavior of its huge population and to consolidate its power.

Even as China emerges from the socialist police state that was crafted under Chairman Mao’s oppressive Cultural Revolution, the country is still full of rampant government corruption, secret trials, inhumane detentions, abuses of power, injustices, and the denial of human rights.As I watch in awe at the powerful athleticism of the young Chinese women of the Olympics, I wonder about their human rights, reproductive health and rights, and their status in Chinese society.

In January 2007, respected Chinese journalist Li Xing wrote: “I have been trying hard to help my readers understand that fact that discrimination against women and attitudes of male chauvinism are…continuing to hurt Chinese women.” She further declared that the general media have not been much help in getting rid of traditional stereotypes against women. For example, the January 2007 media coverage of a report from the State Population and Family Planning Commission indicated that for every 100 baby girls born in 2005, there were 118.58 baby boys. In some provinces, the gap is even more severe–130 baby boys for every 100 girls. This startling disparity is expected to widen, with serious concerns for the survival of girls, as well as social stability. However, according to Li, most of the Chinese media reports were concerned solely with the impact on men, highlighting the fact that by 2020, 30 million Chinese men will find it impossible to find a wife. Li questioned where the focus was for women’s lives, health, rights, and well-being because of this polarizing gender imbalance. She emphasized: “As far as the root of the matter is concerned, news media just stop short of condemning the traditional male chauvinism [and women’s inequality] entrenched in Chinese culture, as if it is something we can do little about.”

Where does the male chauvinism of Chinese culture referred to by Li come from? Many believe that the heart of the problem lies in the Confucian tradition of man’s superiority over women, a belief that has survived decades of Communist rule. According to the Confucian structure of society, women at every level were to occupy a position lower than men. This “natural and proper” view of women has had an enormous influence on the attitudes towards girls and boys that have long been held in Chinese society. In a patriarchal society where boys carry on the family name, are considered better workers, and are seen as insurance against old age, parents–especially those in rural areas–prize boys and have a disincentive to bear and keep their female infants.

In 2004, the Chinese government stated that it recognized that the equality and advancement of women was closely tied to the entire society’s development and growth. This was part of its annual report on The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which the government had previously ratified. CEDAW makes it clear that coercion in family planning policies is prohibited: “Compulsory sterilization or [forced] abortion adversely affects women’s physical and mental health, and infringes on the right of women to decide on the number and spacing of children.”

However, China’s “one-child” policy, which sets birth quotas for most couples to one child, has caused the dramatic gender imbalance noted earlier. While the Law on Population and Family Planning states that one child is mostly merely “encouraged,” abusive or coercive enforcement measures, such as forced abortions, compulsory sterilizations, and the forced insertion of intra-uterine devices after abortions or births, have gone on for years and continue to be documented.

The one-child policy was devised in the 1970s to curb China’s burgeoning population, now at more than 1.3 billion, but the implementation has resulted in numerous human rights violations. Women who have refused to have abortions, sterilizations, and /or use contraception, as well as their family members, have been threatened, lost jobs and homes, and have been imprisoned. Local authorities who decide when and how to collect the so-called “social maintenance” penalties used to enforce the one-child policy, and these fines have often been abusive, arbitrary, and corrupt. Recently parts of the country have seen protests and riots over family planning rules; farmers have demanded refunds of fines levied against the families who had more than one child. These arbitrary enforcement measures, such as hefty fines, forced abortions, confiscation of homes and property, as well as illegal land grabs and the imprisonment of “law breakers and instigators,” have fueled deep tensions between Chinese citizens and Communist party officials, challenging the party’s efforts to maintain stability and keep its grip on power.

The cases of Mao Hengfeng and Chen Guangcheng are illustrative of the inhuman penalties handed out when family planning/one-child policies are challenged. Mao, a human rights activist, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after she refused to have an abortion. Chen is a blind, self-taught lawyer and activist who is serving more than four years in prison after exposing abuses in the implementation of the one-child policy. Like Mao, he has been abused and isolated in prison and is in poor health.

China’s growing gender-ratio disparity is a result of the restrictive implementation of its family planning policies and the deep cultural prevalence for male children. Some officials have admitted that the one-child policy has “aggravated the imbalance,” as the restrictions have led to sex-selective abortions that have overwhelmingly caused the abortion of female fetuses.

According to a United Nations official: “The shortage of women will have enormous implications on China’s social, economic, and development future…The skewed ratio of men to women will have an impact on the sex industry and human trafficking,” as well as family, societal, and regional stability.

In 1994, the Mother and Child Health Act outlawed the practice of gender identification of the fetus and sex-selective abortions; this was reaffirmed in the 2002 Population and Family Planning Law. However, many consider this law unenforceable and yet another human rights violation against women and couples.

On the positive side, Chinese officials have begun the “Care for Girls” campaign in an effort to raise awareness and demonstrate the value of girls and women. This advocacy program is aimed at prospective parents in many underdeveloped areas to correct the severe gender disparity. This is key, as changing the cultural attitudes around women and girls, and educating the public on their equal value, as well as their human rights, is fundamental. Observers of Chinese society also encourage laws that grant girls and women equal rights, enhance the rights of daughters and their responsibilities toward their natal families, give land and inheritance rights for women, increase flexibility around the one-child policy, and implement and expand the social security system for the elderly so that parents do not have to become so dependent on sons for their care and survival.

In addition, economic support is now being offered to girl-only families in rural areas. A pilot program begun in 2004 in certain parts of the country will financially reward those farmers who have no children, have only one child, or have two female children. The Chinese government has finally realized that incentives for fewer children work better than punitive measures and is an important step toward helping farmers comply with the country’s family planning policy. According to population expert Liu Junzhe, this policy is placing more value on human rights. Liu also believes that the policy may contribute to the modification of traditional beliefs about male children and subsequently may aid in restoring a balance to the country’s distorted gender ratio.

What emerges, then, is that there are both regressive and progressive aspects to the laws and human realities of China’s family planning policies. Beijing was given the opportunity to host the Summer Olympics largely because the Chinese government promised to greatly improve its human rights record. In reality, Chinese authorities are reported to have greatly restricted the movements of numerous human rights defenders-both Chinese and foreign–and many have been detained or were denied visas so they would be unable to travel to Beijing during the Olympics.

As I marvel at the Chinese women athletes who demonstrate their impressive physical and mental prowess as they run, jump, spin, bicycle, swim, dive, tumble, wrestle, and somersault through the air, I wonder what the future of their lives, rights, and status in society will be. The 29th Olympiad will end, but the power, worth, contributions, and value of Chinese women and girls never will.