Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., introduced a resolution on Monday with the support of other House Republicans calling for the United States to boycott the 2022 winter Olympics in Beijing if they are not moved elsewhere.
“The Olympic Games is a celebration of international culture, a festival of humanity, and is intended to be independent of political, ideological and diplomatic disagreements,” the resolution states. “However, hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics Games in the PRC, where organized atrocities in the XUAR are ongoing; where the freedoms of Hong Kong’s citizens are being trampled; where the fundamental right to worship is brutally persecuted; and in the wake of the ongoing global devastation from COVID-19; would be immoral, unethical and wrong.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduced a resolution with six other GOP senators on Feb. 3, calling out the genocidal nature of Communist China and urging that “unless the Government of the People’s Republic of China demonstrates significant progress in securing fundamental human rights, including the freedoms of religion, speech, movement, association, and assembly, the International Olympic Committee should rebid the 2022 Winter Olympics to be hosted by a country that recognizes and respects human rights.”
This comes after a terrifying report by the BBC in early February by a former Uighur prisoner alleging that women are raped and abused on a nightly basis. Another former prisoner held in Xinjiang corroborated this story, noting she was forced to strip naked and was handcuffed each night as well.
On Feb. 11, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report suggesting China concealed COVID-19 as much as 90 days prior to when it was first reported, in December 2019.
Speaking to Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday morning, Waltz explained that this is a human rights issue that we cannot merely allow to blow over. Waltz was questioned by Hewitt on whether American athletes should face the repercussions for China’s malfeasance in not being able to participate. The host referenced the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow at the height of the Cold War.
“I mean, we are literally talking about millions of people in concentration camps. Images that have leaked out of China of the Uighurs on their knees blindfolded being loaded into rail cars, loaded into trains, and then being stripped of all of their personal belongings and their heads shaved as they enter these concentration camps for reeducation, to be followed by forced sterilization and forced rape,” Waltz said. “So I think America needs to wake up, and I would encourage Adm. [James] Stavridis, who I have a lot of respect for, and others to understand the gravity of what’s going on, not to mention over 2 million people that are dead around the world for what Beijing has released and then covered up. So I think there’s, there’s a magnitude of difference here.”