Columns China wants to give a muted Olympic hall – and that is a problem

Beijing the Winter Olympics begin on Friday, February 4th. The inauguration will be held at the same stadium as the Beijing Summer Games in 2008. It will be spectacular again, but it should not be fooled.

When top athletes do their best, it’s a sporting celebration. They deserve admiration, encouragement, and rewards.

But when the organizer of the Games is a great power that tramples on human rights, then everything it does and says during the Games is worth taking a critical look at and asking who China is performing for and why.

Olympics are a policy for China and even more so a domestic policy.

The dictatorial government, which oppresses its own people, wants to show its subjects how beautiful and excellent the great races we held for your joy. The world is looking at us, and we should be proud of that.

But the Olympics are also a foreign policy for China. A bit like an athletic and global big hug. The only problem is that the big lap is not easy to see behind the back.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the human rights organization Amnesty warned those involved in and following the Games not to become an instrument of Chinese politics and white washing – or, more precisely, sports washing – and outright propaganda.

The organization urged to remember what happened during the 2008 Summer Games. The Chinese government promised significant improvements to the country’s human rights record, but the improvements never really materialized.

Vice versa.

Human rights situation In many ways, China is more serious now than it was almost 14 years ago.

In Hong Kong, China has suppressed civil society that has cherished its rights and imprisoned its own citizens for their opinions and political views.

In Xinjiang, as many as a million people in the Muslim population have been locked up in camps that the authorities call “voluntary training centers,” but which, according to human rights organizations, may just as well be called a forced labor or prison camp.

China has disputed the figures presented, stating that the centers are concerned with employment measures and the fight against religious extremism.

However, according to human rights defenders, this is much worse in Xinjiang, and according to the United States, it is the worst genocide.

Athletes and among the rest of the race people, China has sought to create a fearful, or at least cautious, atmosphere that would shut its mouths.

Representing the Chinese authorities Yang Shu recently stated that an athlete who acts or speaks against the Olympic spirit or Chinese laws and rules may be punished.

Equally, he could have read publicly a list of questions that no one should ask and the facts that athletes and everyone in the race must keep quiet about.

This list would include at least the already mentioned Hong Kong and Xinjiang, as well as the question of what happened to the tennis star Peng Shuaillewho said he had been exploited by a well-known former minister.

You don’t want to answer nasty questions. You don’t even want to ask them.

Western – or, in fact, from any point of view – it is a matter of outright interference with freedom of expression.

Amnesty has therefore called on the countries participating in the Games and their sports federations to fully support and protect the right of their athletes to express their views.

That is a good and necessary policy.

Defending human rights is always important. As well as freedom of speech and the search for truth.

That is why Helsingin Sanomat will talk in the coming days about the Olympic Games and human rights, as well as about the political and historical situation in which Beijing is competing.

Situation is almost bleakly paradoxical.

Power China is doing everything it can to prevent the microscopic virus that caused the global pandemic from returning in disguise.

At the same time, the fight against coronavirus self-transformation will give the administration more tools to guard race guests, whether they are athletes, journalists or other race personnel.

The Olympics are held in a carefully insulated corona bubble, the transparent walls of which are not allowed to burst. In order to enter the Games, both athletes and journalists have had to download applications to their phones that have been warned about the security risks of going to the Games.

With cannon snowthe Beijing Winter Games, which compete in low – snow landscapes, summarize the fact that many humanities are globally raging about the great power ‘s aspirations and the effects of the pandemic and climate change on everyone’ s fundamental rights.

The Olympics, which have never been seen before, are about to begin. And which, at best, lead to no more seeing.

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