Protesters Outside of NBC Studios Demand Network, Sponsors Drop Genocide Olympics

Protesters from New York’s Tibetan, Hongkonger, Southern Mongolian, and Kazakh communities and their allies rallied outside of Rockefeller Center on Tuesday demanding that NBC drop its coverage of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Tuesday marked one month until the start of the Winter Games in the Chinese capital. Dozens of organizations representing the victims of Chinese communism around the world organized a “global day of action” to demand a boycott of the event. Among the demands the groups have listed are for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to relocate the event, for NBC to drop its coverage, for sponsors to not fund it, and for athletes not to participate.

Human rights groups have objected for years to Beijing hosting the event on the grounds that China is one of the world’s worst human rights abusers. China is currently engaging in what both the administrations of President Joe Biden and Donald Trump have deemed a genocide against the Uyghur ethnic people of East Turkistan, as well as other Muslim-majority ethnic groups in the area. The Communist Party is believed to operate as many as 1,200 concentration camps there, where victims are subject to slavery, torture, forced sterilization, and other crimes.

The Party has long implemented similar measures in Tibet, where an estimated 500,000 people have been forced into concentration camps since 2020. Chinese officials have outlawed Tibetan Buddhism and removed Tibetan language instruction from classrooms, implementing teaching of Mandarin, a Han language that has no roots in the region. Tibetans have similarly accused Chinese officials of torturing and enslaving them. – READ MORE