'Boycott banter' to be doused by opening, says Beijing Games organiser
Olympics will turn attention away from criticism over human rights, which China rejects, a spokesperson for the organising committee told Reuters on the eve of the opening ceremony. Several countries including the United States and Britain have announced a diplomatic boycott of the Games over China's rights record, including its treatment of mostly Muslim Uyghurs in its Xinjiang region, which the United States deems genocide. "The so-called China human rights issue is a lie made up by people with ulterior motives," Zhao Weidong, spokesperson for the Beijing Games, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday when asked if such criticism had undermined the Games.
