China being a bad insensitive host during the biggest sporting event in the world

By Akiko Kashiwagi

Beijing Winter Olympics started last week from 4th February but, before the games even began, the event taking place in Mainland China has been in highlight for all the wrong reasons.

There have been several reports from the country of the ill-treatment of the athletes by the unsympathetic Chinese authorities.

The most recent horrifying account of a Polish short track speed skater affirms the inhospitable environment these international players are managing with. 26-year-old Natalia Maliszewska describes her traumatic experience to Reuters where she was thrown in and out of the game several times because of imprecise and flawed covid-19 test results.

Natalia tested positive but was informed by the authorities that she is allowed to train, but just 30 minutes before her scheduled warm-up, the authorities refrained her saying that the organization was mistaken and she is not allowed to compete. Then on next Saturday morning, she was stormed out of her isolation room at 3 am to get tested again. Natalia narrated her ordeal as how the authorities made her feel confused and unsafe in a foreign land.

This is not an isolated event. There have been several reported incidents coming from China about the mistreatment of athletes visiting there for the Winter Olympics 2022.

Jukka Jalonen, men’s ice hockey team coach of Finland, accused the Chinese administration of not respecting the human rights of one of his players. He said that his player is suffering in quarantine and not being provided with enough food. The player, Antilla was being kept in isolation for 18 days even when he was no longer considered infectious.

Kim Meylemans, Belgian Skeleton racer, uploaded a teary-eyed video on Instagram citing her ordeal of being in strict long quarantine while there’s mounting Olympic pressure.

Valeria Vasnetsova, a Russia's biathlon player also took to her Instagram slamming the organisers for providing inedible meals in quarantine centres. She shared a picture of the little food served to her and said that the same meal is being served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She cries every night and wants this ordeal to end.

China is imposing unreasonable isolation rules and unexplained media suppression. Deputy -director general of Beijing 2022’s International Relations Department, Yang Shu, said in a virtual briefing that any behaviour or speech criticising Chinese laws and regulations will be dealt with appropriate punishment.

Before travelling to Beijing, Human Rights Watch warned the Olympic athletes not to speak anything ill about China for the duration of the games as there is a looming personal safety issue for the participants. The laws in China are very vague about what can be used as the basis to prosecute people’s free speech,”

Upon entry, the athletes were mandated to download an app, MY2022 and it was later discovered that this app has a major security flaw which renders the personal sensitive data like email address, health status, passport and travel details etc., vulnerable.

Sports Director Kit McConnell of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has said that the condition of the players is a top priority and they are looking in individual instances.

These abysmal conditions speak a lot about China’s lack of hospitability and in general, disregard for basic human rights and living conditions. Olympics is a dream for all athletes for which they train to the bone for years. The plight of these athletes just when they are about to compete is disappointing. Instead of making sure the best of the treatment to these players, the Chinese authorities have made the whole experience petrifying and inhumane.

Canada, the UK and the US had declared a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics 2022. While the players from these countries are still competing, the governments have not sent any officials or ministers to China.

This is all in protest of human rights violations of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, Taiwan and Tibet by China. There have been longstanding accusations against China for forcing people from these areas into labour and sterilization in the garb of re-education camps. The Communist Party of China received a huge backlash for ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide.

Many people and organizations have indicated that the current Beijing Winter Olympics is a sports-washing opportunity and a propaganda exercise for China to deter the attention of the public from the human rights violations.