Dharamshala, 27th December: A group of 15 Tibetan bikers protesting the Winter Olympics, which will be hosted in Beijing next year, said China did not deserve to host the games, which promote world unity and peace, and asked the Indian government to boycott the event. The Tibetans, who arrived in Ahmedabad on Sunday, drew attention to the Chinese occupation of Tibet’s egregious violations of human rights.
The bikers are on a march from Bengaluru to Delhi, organized by the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress-Delhi (RTYC), to protest the Winter Olympics, which will take place between February 4 and 20. The rally’s visit in Ahmedabad is part of a 10-state, 40-location trek across India.
RTYC President Tsering Chomphel, speaking at a press conference along the Sabarmati Riverfront in partnership with the Gujarat chapter of the India Tibet Friendship Society (ITFS), remarked, “The main objective of the rally is to boycott Beijing Winter Olympics, which is coming up in February. We are not against the game, but against the Chinese (government); because China never deserves to host the Olympic games that stands for unity, brotherhood, harmony, and peace among nations. But China never did that and is, in fact, against it (those virtues). There are many political prisoners in China. We urge the Chinese government to release the political prisoners.”
In response to a query, Chomphel stated that they want Tibet to be treated as a country, not only an autonomous state, by China. Tenzin Lekshay, RTYC General Secretary, stated that eight countries have already declared a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics and that they will recommend that the Indian government do the same.
In an official statement, RTYC stated “Though sport ideally must be kept away from politics in a normal time, however, the atrocities carried out by China against Tibet and Uyghur people in the form of increasing police custodial deaths, tortures, forced sterilization, forced disappearance, genocide and the running of mass concentration camps raise fundamental questions about the basic tenets of humanity. We cannot and should not keep sports away from the basic moral principles. The international community cannot go on like business as usual with China regarding its repressions at home and aggression abroad from India’s Himalayan borders to Taiwan and the South China Sea,”
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