Tibetans march on IOC headquarters to protest Beijing Games

LAUSANNE, Switzerland: Several hundred Tibetan and Uyghur activists marched on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Thursday (Feb 3), a day before Beijing 2022 opens, accusing the Swiss-based organisation of complicity in "atrocities" committed against ethnic minorities in China.

Hours earlier, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the Beijing Olympics would be streamlined, safe and splendid, even as IOC President Thomas Bach decried boycott ghosts "rearing their ugly heads again" over human rights concerns.

The United States, Britain and some other allied countries have staged diplomatic boycotts of the Games over those concerns.

"Today here we are gathered, Tibetans from at least eight different countries in Europe, in front of the IOC building to protest against IOC awarding the Winter Olympics 2022 to the Beijing government," Karma Choekyi, head of the Tibetan Community of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, told Reuters.

She said more than 150 Tibetans had self-immolated after the 2008 Beijing Summer Games because of "much repression in Tibet".

"So to award yet again the Winter Olympics 2022 to Beijing means the IOC has not taken (account) of gross human rights violations by the Chinese regime on the people of Tibet, east Turkistan (Xinjiang), southern Mongolia and even the fragile democracy in Hong Kong," she said.

The marchers - many wrapped in the red, yellow and blue flag of Tibet and dressed in traditional robes - chanted and played drums, holding a minute of silence for their "martrys" before starting a "peace march" along Lake Geneva.

Their chants included "Beijing Olympics, Genocide Games", "Tibet is burning" and "Long live Dalai Lama".

They presented a petition to IOC security staff signed by the presidents of