There are a lot of things going on right now outside of the pandemic and groups that are alleging human-right abuses against minorities in China call for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Games. This is sure to stir up pressure on the International Olympic Committee as well as everyone involved in the games. Here are the highlights:

• A coalition that represents Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other residents of Hong Kong has called for a boycott. 
• In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Lhadon Tethong of the Tibet Action Institute that it’s time IOC takes action and that business and games as usual can’t go on.
• The Beijing Games are set for Feb 4, 2002, which is just 6 months after the Tokyo Olympics. 
• Rights groups have met several times last year with the IOC to get the games out of China. Tethong deported from China in 2007, a year before the Beijing Games in summer 2008. She says that the situation now is worst than the 2008 Olympics when IOC promised human rights would improve in China.
• Tethong argues that even though they spoke about the issues to IOC several times, their best interest is not at hand for the real impacts for the everyday person. 
• IOC has repeatedly said they stay neutral and they’re a sports business. IOC President Thomas Bach said they’re not a super-world government.
• China’s foreign ministry has said that a boycott is doomed to failure and that politics should be left out of sports. 
• While it’s important that athletes have worked hard to get a chance to achieve their goals in the Olympics, Tethong said the bigger issue is the morals behind the Olympics. She questions if it’s okay to have an international goodwill sporting event when the host nation is committing genocide beyond the stands. 
• Even British U.N. Ambassador, Barbara Woodward, considers what’s on Xinjiang as one of the worst human rights crises of this time period.