IOC backs China on Tibet issue

The International Olympic Committee rejected charges that the human rights situation is deteriorating in China and turned down appeals to in...

The International Olympic Committee rejected charges that the human rights situation is deteriorating in China and turned down appeals to intervene on Tibet and other issues.

Speaking after prominent activist Hu Jia was jailed earlier on Thursday for subversion, senior IOC member Hein Verbruggen said a report by Amnesty International asserting human rights were suffering because of the Games was “blatantly untrue.”

In the report released on Thursday, Amnesty said China was using the Olympics to crack down on dissent ahead of the August 8-24 Games and that the rights situation was worsening as a result.

Story continues below this ad

“To go that far, to say the Games contributed to a worsening situation of human rights (in China), I mean that I would call blatantly untrue,” said Verbruggen. The IOC has argued that the Olympics will be a force for good in China, awarded the 2008 Games after insisting that the event would help promote human rights.

Verbruggen declined to comment on the jailing of Hu, a Chinese AIDS campaigner and prominent civil rights advocate sentenced to three-and-a-half years on charges of subversion. “It is a matter of Chinese law and is not a matter for the Olympic Games or the IOC,” Verbruggen, head of the IOC’s Coordination Commission, which is advising Beijing on how to prepare for the Games in August, told reporters.

Verbruggen said that Beijing was preparing well for the Games, following three days of meetings between his commission and Olympic organising committee officials.