Top advertisers for Beijing Winter Olympics face pressure over China human rights abuses

Top advertisers for the Beijing Winter Olympics are facing pressure to take a stand on China’s reported human rights abuses as they gear up for the top international games. 

Sponsors like Coca Cola, VISA and Samsung were sent letters from Humans Right Watch in May questioning their involvement in the Olympic Games and how it will impact their policies on protecting human rights. 

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Human Rights Watch received a response back from just one of the top 13 sponsors. 

"There are just three months until the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, but corporate sponsors remain silent over how they are using their influence to address China’s appalling human rights record," Sophie Richardson, China director for the human rights group said Friday. "They are squandering the opportunity to show their commitment to human rights standards and risk instead being associated with an Olympics tainted by censorship and repression."

Human rights groups and some lawmakers on the Hill have looked to the mammoth companies to take a stand and speak out on the abuses committed against Uyghur and Turkish populations in Xinjiang.

But their apparent refusal to do so is not the first time the corporate giants have stayed silent.

In a July hearing with the Congressional Executive Commission on China, executives from Coca Cola, Visa, Airbnb and P&G said it was not the position of the companies to address the reported abuses, and instead deferred to the federal government.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have made strides to block imports on goods made using forced labor from Xinjing and have called on U.S. companies to take similar steps in condemning the human rights abuses. 

China has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in Xinjiang and rejected the push by Human Rights Watch to hold Beijing accountable.

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"Politicizing sports and fabricating rumors and lies to undermine the Olympic cause will find no support and is doomed to fail," foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Friday. 

The United Nations introduced a policy for Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 that has been widely adopted by all but one corporate sponsor for the Olympics, reported the international organization.

And in December 2020, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) released a Human Rights Strategy that would align the international games with UN’s guiding principles — though the policy is not set to be implemented until after the 2022 games.

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Human Rights Watch has called on the corporations to urge the IOC to immediately adopt the guiding principles and to adhere to the policy by condemning human rights abuses in China.

"The Olympic corporate sponsors have taken no evident steps to press the IOC to adopt human rights that are now standard across the business world," Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch said. "As the clock ticks down toward the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony on February 4, the TOP sponsors should publicly call on the Olympic system they are paying for to stand up for human rights and put an end to rampant abuses in China." 

Fox News could not immediately reach Coca-Cola or VISA for comment.