Several prominent people and organizations have called for a boycott of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, such as Reporters Without Borders,
Their justification for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics is the terrible human rights record of the Chinese communist regime. Censorship of the media is common and journalists have been detained for speaking out against the government. The Chinese Government is very intolerant when it comes to organized dissent against the regime, and persecutes Falon Gong practitioners.
These are all valid reasons for some sort of boycott of
However, Olympic athletes are very unlikely to be involved in human rights abuses, so they should not be made to suffer because of heartless politicians. If the international community was serious about stopping human rights abuses in
The Olympics should have been held somewhere else, in a country without rampant abuses of human rights. Unfortunately it is too late to move them. The athletes, who have worked their whole lives to get to the Olympics, should not be punished for the actions of the Chinese regime.
It would be wise for the IOC to bring in a policy of refusing to hold the Olympics in a country where people’s human rights are being abused regularly. Such a policy would see issues like this one fade away. FIBA, FIFA and other international sporting organizations should have the same rule in place.
The separation between politics and sport has become increasingly blurred in recent years. It is too impractical to boycott the
Lets hope the situation improves soon.
4 Comments:
your argument misses the whole point of the boycott. It is not to punish the athletes but to bring to attention the reasons for boycott. If we are not punishing the athletes why did we boycott the Moscow olympics- were the athletes bad communists? were we scared our athletes would become communists. Why boycott S. Africa if only a small minority of the population was rascist. I am sorry but a Boycott of the beijing olympics is the only was we can stand up to our own ideals of freedom and basic human rights.
It's called making a statement to the world that the policies of the Chinese regime are unacceptable.
The olympics is a great opportunity to get people's attention. By participating athletes are in essence saying, "not my problem."
It's not their problem if China blocks the UN from stopping genocide in Darfur. And it's not their problem if they continue to violate human rights on they're own citizens.
If you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem.
The above two comments make a very good point. But then again so does the article. Is it fair for the atheletes who have worked all their lives for a chance ot be in the olympics. It may be their only chance to ever compete in them aswell. I say the best solution would be a complete boycott of the openin cermony but for the atheltes to still be allowed to compete.
above comments are encouraging athletes to forsake the competition in order to embrace a higher cause, which to me sounds like complete bs. If anything, atheletes should be encouraged to compete harder and take as many medals away from China as possible. Forcing atheletes to give up what they have worked so hard for while people like us suffering no significant consequences does not sound all that high and mighty anyways.
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