Tibetans chain themselves to Olympic rings outside IOC to protest Beijing games

Record ID: 1650702

  • Title: Tibetans chain themselves to Olympic rings outside IOC to protest Beijing games
  • Date: 11th December 2021
  • Summary: ANOTHER PROTESTER BEING DRAGGED OFF / PROTESTERS CHANTING BY OLYMPIC RINGS
  • Embargoed: 25th December 2021 13:35
  • Keywords: 2022 Olympics protests
  • Location: LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND
  • City: LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: Europe,Olympics,Sport
  • Reuters ID: LVA009F7LDHS7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Two Tibetan students chained themselves to the Olympic rings outside the Swiss headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne on Saturday (December 11) to call for an international boycott of next year's Winter Games.
    Other demonstrators joined the pair during a protest against the 2022 Olympic Games over what they say is Beijing's abuse of human rights and its treatment of minorities.
    The United States will not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics due to China's human rights "atrocities," it said earlier this month.
    Members of the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe (TYAE) and Students for a Free Tibet held a sit-in at the IOC building as officials gathered for a meeting.
    The activists demanded countries withdraw from the event they have called the "Genocide Games", which they say are being used to burnish China's reputation.
    China seized control of Tibet after its troops entered the region in 1950 in what it calls a "peaceful liberation". Tibet has since become one of the most restricted areas in the country. Critics, led by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, say Beijing's rule amounts to "cultural genocide".
    Police started removing the campaigners after three hours of protests. Organisers and a Reuters eyewitness described the protest as peaceful, but the IOC said one of its security guards was injured.
    The organisation has previously said it is a force for good and cannot have any influence over sovereign states.
    Chinese authorities have been accused of facilitating forced labour by detaining around a million Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim minorities in camps since 2016. China denies wrongdoing, saying it has set up vocational training centres to combat extremism.
    (Production: Denis Balibouse, Yiming Woo)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Olympic restriction: Clip cannot be re-published without additional clearances from the IOC.
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