The US House Speaker Invites To Boycott The 2022 Winter Olympics As The Act Of Criticism To Uighur Muslims Genocide

Screenshot of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics official website. (Www.olympic.org)

JAKARTA - Speaker of the United States (US) House of Representatives (DPR) Nancy Pelosi has called for a US diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, related to human rights violations.

In a bipartisan session of the US Congress on Tuesday local time, Pelosi said all heads of state in the world must avoid the Olympics which will be held in February 2022.

Nancy Pelosi said what she was proposing to join the other proposers was a diplomatic boycott. According to her, the world's leading countries refrain from being present in Beijing.

"Don't respect the Chinese government by asking the head of state to go to China", she said, telling Reuters on Wednesday, May 19.

"For a head of state to go to China in connection with the ongoing genocide, when you sit in your chair, it really raises the question, what moral authority do you have to talk again about human rights anywhere in the world?", she criticized.

This statement comes out of his outrage that US companies are "silent" in connection with the US State Department's statement regarding the genocide against Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, China.

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Republican Congressman Chris Smith, who chaired the hearing, said company sponsors should be called to testify before Congress and held to account.

"Big business wants to make a lot of money and it doesn't seem to care what cruelty, even genocide, the host country is committed to", Smith criticized.

Meanwhile, Democrat Jim McGovern added that the Olympics should be postponed to give the International Olympic Committee time to move the event to a country whose government has not committed atrocities.

"If we can postpone the Olympics by a year because of the pandemic, we can definitely postpone the Olympics by a year for genocide", said McGovern, referring to Japan and the IOC's decision to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics because of COVID-19.

Last month, Republican Senator Mitt Romney introduced a broader amendment to the law against China that would impose a US diplomatic boycott.

Separately, Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in the United States, told Reuters that the US attempts to interfere in China's domestic affairs during the Winter Olympics were doomed to fail.

"I wonder what makes some US politicians think they actually have what is called 'moral authority'? Regarding human rights issues, they are not in a position, either historically or at present, to make unfounded criticisms of China", Liu criticized.