Speaker Pelosi calls for diplomatic boycott of 2022 Beijing Olympics by world leaders

DHARAMSALA 19 May: The Speaker of the US House of Representatives has called for a global diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics on human rights grounds.

“Let’s not honour the Chinese government by having heads of state go to China,” the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said at a bipartisan congressional hearing on Tuesday.

“For heads of state to go to China in light of a genocide that is ongoing – while you’re sitting there in your seat – really begs the question, what moral authority do you have to speak again about human rights any place in the world?” she added.

The octogenarian Speaker’s remarks came amid a growing call for a full-scale boycott of the games in Beijing by rights groups across the world. 

Earlier in March, Former US ambassador to United Nations,  Nikki Haley called on the US to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in China while other lawmakers from her political party, Republican, have also urged President Biden to boycott the Winter Olympics in Beijing as well.

The Games are scheduled to begin on 4 Feb next year, but calls to boycott it continues to get steam.

Leading Tibetan NGOs along with a coalition of 180 rights groups across the world representing Tibet, Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Hongkonger, Taiwanese, and Chinese people, along with other international human rights organisations declared that hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, legitimises China’s human rights abuses as they called on governments around the world to boycott the Olympics after their plea to the IOC to move the games fell before deaf ears in February.

The Tibetan parliament in exile unanimously approved a resolution at its 10th session on the 18th of March calling on the Tibetan cabinet, the parliament as well as all governmental and non-governmental Tibetan entities to launch a worldwide campaign of protests against the Beijing Olympics.