5 times world politics cast a shadow on the Olympic Games

2008 Olympic Games, Beijing

China has been accused of several human rights violations over time

Several factors went into a proposed boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Human rights activists world over had protested several aspects of China’s political regime.

The country has never had a spotless human rights record, and matters reached a head when the Olympics were announced for the city.

China’s political and human rights history precluded it, however, and the nation’s stance towards Tibet in particular was heavily, and widely, criticized worldwide. The country’s regime is also severely restrictive on its citizens, whose online communications and interactions are seriously controlled and monitored by a totalitarian government.

It was alleged also that foreign journalists at the Olympics saw serious restrictions on what they could report, speak about, communicate to the outside world,and journalists were also allegedly silenced under the threat of physical violence.

China’s political affiliations have also been under the scanner, with the nation supporting international human rights conflicts.

Even as the Games concluded, there were serious accusations of non-representation of minority communities, and serious allegations of age falsification on the part of China’s own athletes.

International organizations accused China of ‘institutionalised cheating’, with some allegations turning out to have been true.