An ice hockey match is held in Beijing’s Olympic ice rink as a test event on April 1, 2021, ahead of the 2022 Winter Games / AFP / Archives
China on Thursday accused the United States of taking athletes “hostage” after the words of a senior American official criticizing the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Human rights organizations are calling for a boycott of the Games due to open in February 2022, accusing China in particular of repressing the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang (northwest).
Without commenting at this stage on a possible boycott, a senior State Department official said Wednesday that Washington “was examining its options” in order to promote its “priorities” in connection with the Olympics.
“This includes countering Beijing’s intention to use the Games as a platform to validate, in a way, its governance model and hide its flagrant human rights violations,” said the official in charge of freedom of movement. religion, Dan Nadel.
He accused the communist regime of having turned Xinjiang into an “open-air prison”.
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the United States had “no right to hold hostage the right of its athletes to compete.”
The head of the American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, for his part, on Wednesday accused China of “perpetrating crimes against humanity and genocide” in Xinjiang, presenting the annual report of the State Department on religious freedom in the world.
Ms. Hua replied by deeming the United States’ human rights record “shameful”.
In addition, on the occasion of the end of Ramadan, Abdureqip Tumulniyaz, president of the Muslim Association of the Xinjiang region, defended China’s religious policy at a reception in Beijing.
“The United States and Western countries turn a blind eye to their own violations of the rights of Muslims,” he accused.
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