IOC Vice-President Anita DeFrantz warns Olympic athletes not to protest on the podium

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At the start of the Tokyo Olympics, the top-ranked American on the International Olympic Committee warned athletes that the medal podium was not a place for political statements, and suggested that the IOC itself did not. no politics – even when a host country, like China, which hosts the Winter Games in February, is accused of genocide.

Surprisingly blunt apolitical argument presented by IOC Vice President Anita DeFrantz reflects the position of the Switzerland-based association that controls the Games, and comes as the delayed Tokyo Olympics unfold in a state of emergency linked to the pandemic and a persistent global social situation. troubles.

“Catwalks don’t belong to anyone,” DeFrantz said in a recent ESPN interview. “If you’re lucky enough to step on it and you can soak up that moment for the rest of your life, this moment is yours, but the podium is not yours.”

This position will likely be tested in the coming weeks by athletes showing their support for Black Lives Matter and other causes.

Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter has long prohibited athletes from “any kind of demonstration or propaganda, whether political, religious or racial, in the Olympic areas”. Last month, the IOC changed the guidelines, allowing competitors more freedom of expression before the start of an event as well as press conferences. Athletes still cannot make a political statement on the medal podium or in competition.

On Thursday, more than 150 current and former athletes, including Tommie Smith and John Carlos, whose demonstration at the 1968 Olympics became a symbol of the civil rights movement, signed a letter urging the IOC not to punish athletes who demonstrate.

Athletes’ and human rights groups are monitoring the IOC’s reaction to possible Tokyo protests ahead of the upcoming Beijing Games. They fear that the IOC will not protect athletes who demonstrate against the Chinese government.

“What is not clear from the IOC, especially around Beijing, is what happens when an athlete wears a jersey that says free Uyghurs or something in his press conference?” says Peter Irwin, communications director for the Uyghur Human Rights Project. “The question is how far the IOC is going to ensure that these athletes’ rights are protected? And how far will the IOC be pressured by the Chinese government to detain the athletes? If you will? are an average citizen in china and something like that [happened] you would be detained for life.

DeFrantz, who has been an IOC member since 1986, was evasive when asked about the organization’s willingness to protect the freedom of expression of athletes, especially if they demonstrate in favor of Uyghurs and Uighurs. minority groups, saying, “Protect them from the What? Who is the IOC? Are we a government?

“We are not a government, I will remind you again. We are a Swiss association and we work with all our national Olympic committees. We do not necessarily work with governments. We work with governments through our partnership with the UN and do things on behalf of refugees and human rights.

DeFrantz, an Ivy League-trained lawyer who described herself as a fourth-generation civil rights activist, also took offense that the upcoming Beijing Olympics were dubbed the “Genocide Games”.

“Oh my God, that’s a horrible thing to say about anything,” DeFrantz said. “It’s a horrible word to begin with. The fact that we know what it means is also horrible. So I would never say that. The words don’t go together at all.”

As for attaching the tag to the Beijing Olympics, she added, “A lot of people say a lot of things. This is the world and time of social media where anyone can say things, whether in his head or not. “

Only, it is not a social media phenomenon.

The Genocide Games branding came as international lawyers and activists tried to pressure the IOC, international sports federations and corporate sponsors to tackle human rights violations by China, especially in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, which accounts for 85% of China’s cotton production and 20% of the world’s cotton supply. China is accused of forcing Uyghurs and other minorities to do heavy manual labor in the region’s vast cotton fields.

Several governments had previously condemned these abuses. Earlier this year, the US State Department officially declared the Chinese government guilty of genocide against the country’s 12 million-strong Uyghur community. In addition, the State Department discovered that more than a million Uyghurs were jailed last year. Another two million received daytime “re-education training” only to strip them of their culture.

Chinese authorities have repeatedly denied the allegations of forced labor and other human rights violations in Xinjiang as “completely unfounded.”

The sidelong relationship with authoritarian world power is not limited to the IOC. The Games’ major trading partners will invest more than $ 1 billion in sponsorship deals covering the Beijing 2022 Winter Games. Some, like Samsung and Panasonic, have been identified by independent watchdogs as directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur workers.

Long-time IOC partner Coca-Cola is said to have a Chinese sugar supplier linked to forced labor in Xinjiang. Coca Cola was also part of the American companies put pressure on Congress to weaken the Uyghur law on the prevention of forced labor, which would ban the importation of goods made with forced labor into China. Contrary to their Chinese position, Coca-Cola officials condemned a new electoral law in Georgia, which was at the heart of Major League Baseball by moving its recent All-Star Game out of Atlanta.

Many other well-known brands are also accused of direct or indirect links to forced labor in Xinjiang, including Victoria’s Secret, North Face, Hugo Boss, Fila and Asics.

Sports leagues, teams and professional athletes also benefit from lucrative deals with multinational brands that benefit from forced labor in China.

In Tokyo, the IOC delegation, including DeFrantz, will be dressed in equipment provided by Chinese companies Anta Sports and the Hengyuanxiang Group, both using cotton from Xinjiang.

“Well, we have ethics except when it comes to China,” said Louisa Greve, director of global advocacy for the Uyghur Human Rights Project. “If the market is big enough, we will bow down to the authoritarians and the genocide does not matter.”

“Brands are afraid of China,” she added. “The brands want to stay in the background, but the responsibility should be taken by the IOC.… They knew that taking the Games was going to be a problem. They weren’t blind to it.”

DeFrantz prefers to focus on the bigger picture. A bronze medalist in rowing at the 1976 Montreal Games, she failed four years later when the United States boycotted the Moscow Games. In his eyes, the Games are “proof that we can have a more perfect world” and leave host countries a better place, although critics argue that the human rights situation in China has only helped. worsen since the 2008 Beijing Games.

“I can tell you that having the Games in Beijing in 2008 made a difference,” she said. “Among other things, the internet worked really well during the Games and hadn’t worked before. My understanding is that there were child labor laws that were passed after the Games. People might have it. a job in others – a lot has changed. But I don’t know, has the general direction of the party changed because of 2008? I don’t know. “

DeFrantz remains dismissive of athlete protests, suggesting that Smith and Carlos’ Mexico City podium protest did not move the needle on racial issues in 1968.

“I have great respect for Smith and Carlos and (Peter) Norman, who was the Australian, the silver medalist,” said DeFrantz, who later became the first African American elected to the IOC. “I know what it did to Carlos and Smith, more than to Norman. How difficult it was for them to find a job later on. How it changed their life path.

“What I also know is that it hasn’t made an iota of difference in the lives of people with my skin tone in the United States.”

With more than 200 countries represented at the Games, she fears that if athletes from each country voice their concerns, the medal podium could become a speakers’ corner for discussion and debate.

“The people of the United States were fortunate enough to make a difference…” she said. “There is so much that could have been done this year before you waited to step on the podium and signal something that few people could or could not understand.… The self-centered nature of, ‘I want it. do .’ Okay, okay, so what’s going to happen because you did that?

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