Free Tibet drops banner at Westminster Bridge urging boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics

London [UK], June 23 : Free Tibet, a group fighting for the rights of Tibetans on Wednesday unfurled a banner at the Westminster Bridge calling for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
They have appealed to the UK government to recognise China's appalling human rights abuses and to boycott Beijing 2022 Olympics.
The action generated significant attention with several laypersons approaching them to enquire about the campaign and how they could support it, said the Free Tibet organisation.
The organisation said that protesters will also gather outside Downing Street to call on the Prime Minister Boris Johnson to show leadership and not to attend the Winter Games and also urge him to dissuade the British Olympic Association not to send a team to Beijing.
A growing number of MPs have called on the UK to carry out either a diplomatic or full boycott of next year's Winter Games, said Free Tibet.
On International Olympic Day (June 23) campaigners representing Tibetan, Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Hongkonger, Taiwanese, and Chinese people united around the globe in over 60 global cities calling on world leaders, National Olympic Committees, Olympic Sponsors and all people of conscience to boycott Beijing 2022, 'The Genocide Games.'
The protest was organised under the campaign "No Beijing 2022 Global Day of Action".
From New Zealand to Canada, Japan to Argentina, Australia to Sweden, thousands of people will stand in solidarity to deliver the joint message that China must not be allowed to use Beijing 2022 to 'sport-wash' the genocide against the Uyghur people, the severe and escalating repression in Tibet, Southern Mongolia, Hong Kong, and China proper, and the geopolitical bullying of Taiwan.
In February 2022, Beijing will become the first city in the world to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics. Tibetans had earlier protested during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, they were brutally put down.
Since then more than one million Tibetans have been entered into coercive labour and relocation programmes designed to disrupt traditional ways of life. Over a million Uyghur people have been detained in concentration camps and up to 500,000 are being forced to pick cotton, said Free Tibet in a release.
A boycott is already supported by politicians from the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, as well as the Czech senate, and US politicians Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney.
Support for a boycott of Beijing 2022 has grown exponentially since activists released a joint letter to governments in September 2020. Parliaments and elected representatives from across the political divide agree that supporting the Beijing 2022 Olympics is tantamount to endorsing China's human rights abuses, said #NoBeijing2022 release.
As human rights experts warned, the 2008 Summer Games led to a further crackdown on human rights and took place without any meaningful human rights due diligence.
Contrary to China's commitment to hold a "free and open" Olympic Games in 2008, Beijing continued to clamp down on the international media and quashed all freedom of expression for Tibetans wishing to voice their opinions about the Games.