When the Ohio State and Utah football teams played at Rose Bowl Stadium in California on New Year’s Day, 87,842 people packed the stadium to watch the game.
On New Year’s Eve, 66,839 attended the Orange Bowl to see Georgia face Michigan, and 76,313 attended the Cotton Bowl to see Alabama face Cincinnati.
Covid-19 did not stop them.
When the 2022 Winter Olympics begin in Beijing in about two weeks, the various venues that will host this event will only host those that the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China allows to be there.
No one will be able to buy tickets for any competition at the Beijing Olympics.
Over the past month, China has repeatedly tightened restrictions it will impose on those who can participate in the Olympics and what they can do there.
On September 29, the International Olympic Committee announced that people from outside mainland China would not be admitted as spectators to the 2022 Games.
“Tickets will be sold exclusively to spectators residing in mainland China who meet the requirements of Covid-19 measures,” the committee announced.
Two days before Christmas, China announced that residents who would be allowed to participate in the Olympics would not be allowed to speak too loudly during the events.
“On Thursday, as athletes from around the world planned the safest personal routes to get to the Games,” the New York Times reported, “China detailed some of the strictest rules yet imposed on its own citizens. Winter Olympics – which were previously limited to residents of China – will be able to applaud, but not shout, in support of the athletes.”
Last week, China announced that it will not be selling tickets for the Olympics and will instead “invite groups of spectators” to participate in the events.
A statement issued by the International Olympic Committee reads:
Given the current situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, in order to guarantee the safety of all participants and spectators, it was decided that tickets should no longer be sold, but rather be part of an adapted program that will invite groups of spectators to be present on site during the games. Organizers expect these spectators to strictly comply with Covid-19 measures before, during and after each event, in order to help create an absolutely safe environment for athletes.
Restricting where people can go and what they can do is nothing new in China. It’s standard procedure.
The US State Department released its latest report on human rights in China last March. The 88-page document chronicled the Chinese regime’s systematic attack on the rights of the Chinese people. Another State Department report focused specifically on China’s attacks on religious freedom. It had 136 pages.
The opening summary of the human rights report reads:
Significant human rights issues include: arbitrary or unlawful killings by the government; enforced disappearance by the government; torture by the government; harsh and life-threatening conditions of imprisonment and detention; [e] arbitrary detention by the government, including the mass detention of more than 1 million Uighurs and other members of predominantly Muslim minority groups in extrajudicial internment camps.
Listed as the Chinese regime’s other attacks on human rights are:
Communist Party control over the judicial and legal system; arbitrary interference with privacy; pervasive and intrusive technical surveillance and monitoring; serious restrictions on freedom of expression, the press and the internet, including physical attacks and criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners and others, as well as their families, and censorship and blocking of websites.
“Under the two-child policy,” the report notes, “the government [chinês] imposes restrictions on childbirth and often coerces women and girls into having abortions and undergoing sterilizations for exceeding birth quotas.”
“Members of the Communist Party,” explains the State Department, “hold almost all the top positions in government and the security apparatus.”
This means that China is ruled by atheists.
“CCP members and members of the armed forces are required to be atheists and prohibited from engaging in religious practices,” reads the department’s report on religious freedom.
China’s leaders would like to make everyone in China an atheist — or, if that’s not possible, make it harder for people to practice the faith they adopt.
“The law requires teaching atheism in schools,” says the report on religious freedom.
“Children under the age of 18 are prohibited from participating in religious activities and receiving religious education, even in schools run by religious organizations,” he says.
“A Catholic source in the northeast of the country told AsiaNews in July that government officials attended Sunday services to monitor activities and ensure that children 18 and under were not participating.”
“Authorities,” the report says, “also installed surveillance cameras at all Protestant and Catholic churches in Jinxiang County, Jinin City, Shandong Province.”
Athletes who have trained most of their lives to earn the chance to compete in the Olympics should never be barred from participating in the Games – even in Beijing. It would have been wrong to abort their dreams by making them boycott these games to protest the evils committed by the regime that will host the event.
But when millions of people around the world turn their eyes to Beijing to see these great athletes compete, they must not forget these evils.
And as long as China is ruled by that regime, it should never be allowed to host another international event.
©2022 The Daily Signal. Published with permission. original in english.
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