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The Beijing Winter Olympics, officially recognized as the 24e edition, officially opened this Friday.
Games that open in a whirlwind of controversy and diplomatic boycotts. Indeed, China is singled out for its bad human rights policy with the repression of the Uyghurs, this Muslim minority in Xinjang province, who are arrested and locked up in “re-education camps” in order to forcibly instill in them the values of the all-powerful single party. Some international organizations speak quite simply of a genocide.
Guest on the set of the show C’est pas tous les jours dimanche, Daniel Salvatore Schiffer is a French-speaking philosopher, author and spokesperson for the International Committee Against the Death Penalty. For him, there are several reasons to boycott the Beijing Games: “Ethical, moral, political and ecological reasons”, he argues and recalls that “China is a dictatorship with only one party, the Communist Party, and it is also the country which applies the death penalty the most in the world. Between 1,000 and 10,000 deaths per year for ‘opponents’ of the regime.”
Particularly arbitrary and cruel death sentences according to him. “Excuses take place in stadiums, the convicted person kneels and a policeman shoots him in the back of the neck or in the brain. It is the family of the condemned who must pay the bullet.”
For the French-speaking spokesperson for the International Committee once morest the Death Penalty, the boycott of the competition should be obvious even if it “don’t blame the athletes at all” but good “politicians and the International Olympic Committee (IOC)” which designated the Chinese capital as the host city of these Games. On the other hand, “not raising your voice and going there as if nothing had happened, of course it’s a form of complicity”, adds Daniel Salvatore Schiffer for the athletes.
© Provided by RTL info
“China is the country that practices the death penalty the most”: should Belgian athletes be sent to the Beijing Olympics?
Live on set from the other side of the planet, Antoine Bolly, a Belgian expatriate in China, does not share this opinion at all. “I have lived in China for 10 years and I live perfectly freely”. Antoine “think Chinese people are positive people who look forward”, and argues that the Chinese government has succeeded in its challenge to offer the possibility to 300 million Chinese to try winter sports.
Also present on the set of the show, Valérie Glatigny, Minister of Sports for the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, wanted to defend Belgium’s point of view for having sent its athletes despite the controversies and assures that “we are very concerned regarding human rights in China”. For the minister,it was important for our athletes to go there”, recalling that “some have been training for 10 years, it’s the culmination of a career”.
Although it is a difficult reality to accept, sport and politics are always intimately linked. Especially when it comes to the influence of the image of a country internationally. Another glaring example is the fraudulent awarding of the FIFA World Cup to Qatar in which countless bribes were paid and which benefited from the support of politicians such as Nicolas Sarkozy (even if the presumption of innocence still applies).
Minister Glatigny concludes by hoping that the athletes can concentrate on their performances and above all, she “believes that athletes should not be slaves to politics.”
