IOC Vice President is incorrect, saying the IOC isn’t political.
The International Olympic Committee is a group that thinks it is a big time player in global politics. The IOC has a seat at the United Nations with permanent observer status. The Vatican has the same position at the UN. IOC President Thomas Bach took credit for North Korea and South Korea putting aside their differences and having a combined team at the 2018 South Korea Winter Olympics. The IOC does play a political game trying to get countries to put up money for its events. The 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing, China next February. There are some politicians in the United States who don’t want to see the American squad participate in those games.
The IOC has a human rights issue that involves China and the Uighurs. In July 2020, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused China of “gross and egregious” human rights abuses against the Uighurs. The Trump administration said the treatment of the Uighurs was genocide. The IOC Vice President John Coates of Australia doesn’t think the IOC is in the business of politics. “The IOC’s remit is to ensure that there is no human rights abuses in respect of the conduct of the Games within the National Olympic Committee, or within the Olympic movement. We have no ability to go into a country and tell them what to do. We are not a world government.” Coates is wrong. The Olympics and the IOC are political creatures. The International Olympic Committee ignored charges of human rights violations in awarding China the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Games. American President Jimmy Carter ordered a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games because the Soviet Union refused to leave Afghanistan. The Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989.
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