A Uyghur activist whose sister was taken by the Chinese government more than three years ago in retaliation for speaking out against genocide told Fox News that the U.S. has a “moral imperative” to boycott the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
The 59-year-old retired medical doctor and sister of Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist, vanished in 2018 less than a week after Rushan condemned China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims at a Washington, D.C. event.
POMPEO: US ATHLETES SHOULD BOYCOTT BEIJING OLYMPICS
The family was given no information about her whereabouts until 2020, when they learned that she was sentenced to 20 years in prison on false charges, “designed to give the regime impunity, punishing innocent Uyghur people,” Abbas told “America Reports.”
“It has been more than 42 months now I have no information on her whereabouts,” she said.
With the Beijing Olympics just days away, Abbas is making a final plea to participating countries to boycott the Winter Games and avoid granting legitimacy to China’s gross human rights abuses.
“A diplomatic boycott is just a bare minimum, and it has allowed a few other nations the opportunity to firmly stand on the correct side of the history. More nations need to join the coalition and send a unified message to this genocidal regime that we have learned from the mistakes of our past and aim not to repeat them in our future,” she said, pointing to “haunting parallels between the Berlin ’36 and the Beijing games that are happening in a few days now.
“The specter of genocide hangs over these games as it happened in Germany during the holocaust,” Abbas continued, “and now it’s happening in my country.”
Pleading on behalf of her sister and the millions of Uyghur’s imprisoned in labor camps, Abbas said that the Winter Olympics “could be stained with the slave labor of my people.”
Volunteers hold the Olympic torch and the frame on stage during a welcome ceremony for the Frame of Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, held at the Olympic Tower in Beijing, Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. A welcome ceremony for the Olympic flame was held in Beijing on Wednesday morning after it arrived at the Chinese capital from Greece. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)
“The International Olympic Committee will not guarantee that no forced labor is involved with the supply chains, so that makes me really frustrated because these prestigious games could be stained with the slave labor of my people,” she explained. “It could even have my own sister’s forced labor. Its millions of slaves to produce the groups for Beijing. Is my own sister making uniforms or the souvenirs for the Olympics?” she said.
Abbas said she is “speaking against China’s genocidal crimes at the cost of my own sister’s freedom.
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So far, the Biden administration has called only for a diplomatic boycott of the Games but in late December world-regions officials called the move “baffling,” noting that the U.S. was still requesting visas for government officials to attend the Games.
Abbas said “the conscience of the world and the humanity are being tested,” by moving forward with the event, adding that the “Olympic sponsors and the [NBC News], which is planning to broadcast those genocidal games, and the international committee are failing at that task.”
The Winter Games are scheduled to kick off on Feb. 4, 2022.
