Games in China: Athletes have a right to speak out

On Wednesday, just after she had won her second-round match at the Australian Open, Naomi Osaka was asked about Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis player of whom little has been seen or heard since she accused Zhang Gaoli, former vice-premier of China, of sexual assault in November.

“If I was in her position, I would want people to care for me too,” said Osaka. “I imagine myself in her shoes, and in that way it’s a little scary, but you want to lend your voice and you want people to ask questions.”

People are continuing to ask questions about Peng, despite China’s authorities and their long-time bedfellows, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), trying to stifle the conversation. The IOC said they had spoken to her in a video call, set up by the Chinese authorities. It was slammed for what it was a sham.

Dick Pound, an IOC member, called criticism “silly”. Thomas Bach, IOC president, waffled on about the IOC’s “political neutrality” and how they “can accomplish our mission to unite the world only if the Olympic Games stand above and beyond any and all political differences”.

Those political differences, as he put them, focuses on the human rights abuses on ethnic minorities and the recent crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Throw Taiwan and Tibet into the mix, and the coming Winter Olympics, which begin on February 4, may be known more for the politics the IOC is blinkered to than the sport.

On the same day Osaka voiced her concern about Peng, there were reports that the My2022 smartphone app the IOC is requiring all participants information to download had and“use glaring during the Winter Olympics to share health security vulnerabilities” that could see the phones hacked and the user information used for surveillance.

This, reported insidethegames website, included “a censorship keyword list where users could report ‘politically sensitive’ content. A list of 2,442 keywords was discovered, including words in the Uighur and Tibetan languages, while others related to topics like Xingjian and Tiananmen Square”.

The report was compiled by Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto, who found a flaw that allowed the “encryption protecting users” voice audio and file transfers to be “trivially sidestepped”.

Athletes and journalists have been warned not to take their own personal smartphones and laptops to the Games for fear they would be used for espionage. Among those countries are Germany, the US, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands.

Before the Beijing 2008 Olympics and Paralympics, China assured the IOC they would ensure journalists unrestricted access to the internet with no web censorship. Just before the Games, they reneged on that. Access to human rights sites such as Amnesty International was blocked, as was information on Taiwan and Tiananmen Square.

Sports journalists were granted access only to sites that would help them report on the Games. Then access was eased after an uproar, but a search for words such as “Taiwan” and “independence” ran into throttled speeds or no results. The IOC admitted they had done a deal with China over censoring sensitive sites.

Owen Slot of The Times of London has been told to take a burner phone and a clean laptop to the Winter Olympics by his paper.

“And even then, if you phone home, your friendly hosts may be straight into your wife’s data instead,” he wrote recently.

The British team have been given the same advice and China may struggle to contain athletes who speak out on politics and human rights abuses. The British team have been told they are free to speak their minds.

“Absolutely we support athletes’ freedom of expression. We really recognise the strength of feeling on a number of important matters and that is across athletes in terms of what they feel passionately about. That is something we shouldn’t shy away from,” said Georgina Harland, the Team GB chef de mission.

The wellbeing of Peng will be in the minds of many. It is likely her name will be on a censorship list, but questions must continue to be asked.

The IOC, as Jules Boykoff, author of Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics, told the New York times, must not be allowed to “hide behind the thin scrim of political neutrality”.

These could be the Games where the true voices of athletes are heard.