Demonstrators outside NBC premises on Sunday (Photo/SFT)
By Choekyi Lhamo | Phayul Newsdesk | August 9, 2021
DHARAMSHALA, Aug 9: Dozens of Tibetan, Uyghur and Hong Konger activists entered the premises of the New-York merchandise store of National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Studios at Rockefeller Center on Sunday. The activists conducted a flash mob to protest and call out NBC to not air the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics scheduled to be held in February. Led by the organization Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), the campaign called on the media giant to end their collaboration with the Beijing Olympics and not to air what the activists called “Genocide Games”.
“By allowing the CCP to have a platform to broadcast and legitimize their heinous crimes against humanity, NBC is saying that the oppression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide occurring among Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hongkongers, Taiwanese, Southern Mongolians, and many more communities in China is okay,” read the statement. This is part of the #NoBeijing2022 campaign to urge businesses and various companies sponsoring the games to hold China accountable for its human rights record.
Tenzin Yangzom, SFT Grassroots Coordinator, at the protest site reportedly said, “As the Olympic torch is handed from Tokyo to Beijing, the attention of the global community must focus on how these Games will legitimize China’s genocide and occupations. NBC has no business partnering with the Chinese government to broadcast the Olympic Games while that very government is simultaneously committing genocide against the Uyghur people and carrying out an unprecedented campaign of repression in Tibet, Hong Kong and beyond.” Shortly after finishing the statement, the activists were given a dispersal order by the NYPD to leave the premises.
SFT Campaigns Director Pema Dolma in the campaign video posted online condemned NBC for their active participation in the 2022 Games, “From now until February, NBC will be investing millions of dollars toward legitimizing the CCP’s leadership in the world by uplifting and putting the Beijing Olympics on a pedestal. The NBC is not only sponsoring [the Olympics] but they are actually going to be actively promoting legitimization and collaboration with the genocidal regime.” The call out is a coordinated movement driven by Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hongkongers, and other allies who are calling for a total boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.