Even though I support the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, I take the view of the U.S. athletes who have trained hard the last four years, and watch the games anyway. I do so only after first offering my own version of a gold medal to the Uyghurs for what they’re forced to endure.
I have said Uyghur more in the last ten days than I have in the last ten years. It’s worth saying again and again so we don’t forget them. Uyghurs are a Muslim ethnic minority in China, and by virtue of religion, China brands the Uyghurs as “terrorists.” What China does to the Uyghurs is the reason the U.S. is boycotting these games.
Emil Guillermo
There are more than 50 ethnic minorities in China, and all of them were gathered for the opening Olympic ceremonies at the start. But it was just a photo op to coverup what scholars have called the genocide of Uyghurs in China.
There are reports confirming forced sterilizations and the removal of Uyghur children from their families. Since 2017, there has been a move to eliminate the Uyghur culture by placing up to three-million Uyghurs in re-education camps. It’s called the largest mass internment of an ethnic religious minority since World War II.
UN Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield says without question the Uyghurs are tortured in China. Once they get out, they are placed in forced labor camps with western tech companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others. The Uyghurs are essentially enslaved.
The lucky ones are those who are part of the Uyghur diaspora, including more than 250,000 Uyghur Americans who have found their way to the U.S. They are always trying to locate family and loved ones who are in the Xinjiang province in the northwest part of China. The Uyghurs situation in China is the definition of anti-diversity. And it’s been enabled by China’s censor of information.
