Human Rights Groups Protest Outside of Chinese Consulate on Eve of Beijing Olympics
By Alice Sun
04 February 2022
LOS ANGELES—A crowd of human rights activists chanted “Free Tibet, free Uyghur, free Taiwan, free Hong Kong, free East Turkestan” in front of the Chinese Consulate in downtown Los Angeles on the eve of the Beijing Olympics.
On Feb. 3, a coalition of 15 human rights groups gathered outside 443 Shatto Place, one of China’s two diplomatic centers on the west coast of the United States, calling for boycotts of the Winter Olympics in Beijing as the Chinese government’s ongoing human rights abuses stand in stark contrast with the spirits represented by the international sporting event.
“The Beijing 2022 Olympics and its broadcast by NBC and other media groups will legitimize the Chinese government’s exceptionally repressive policies and atrocious human rights record,” Tao Tenzing Dhamcho, who represents the International Tibet Network, told The Epoch Times.
Dhamcho referred to the Beijing Olympics as the “CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party] Genocide Games” and claimed that more than 150 Tibetans have immolated because “they see no future for themselves.”
Kevin Young, the president and founder of Santa Barbara Friends of Tibet, told The Epoch Times that he founded the organization after his trip to Nepal, where he met many Tibetan refugees.
“I learned about their story, how they had to flee their country after the [Chinese] Communist Party destroyed monasteries and basically turned [Tibet] into a resource extraction colony.”
The groups said the Chinese Communist Party—with its long list of human rights violations against multiple ethnic and religious groups—is an undeserving host of the Olympic Games.
