The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that China’s decision to have an Uyghur athlete help light the Olympic flame at the Beijing Olympics was an attempt to distract from a genocide the Chinese government has carried out against the Muslim ethnic minority group.
“This is an effort by the Chinese to distract us from the real issue here at hand: that Uyghurs are being tortured and Uyghurs are the victims of human rights violations by the Chinese and we have to keep that front and center,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We know that a genocide has been committed there,” she said. “We’ve made clear that crimes against humanity are being committed in China.”
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield added that it is “important” for the audience who participated in and watched the Olympic flame ceremony to “understand that this does not take away from what we know is happening on the ground there.”
Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a 20-year-old Chinese Uyghur cross country skier, was selected for the honor of being a final Olympic torchbearer at the opening ceremony on Friday.
The decision sparked a debate over the message that China was sending to the United States and other countries that have accused China of committing human rights abuses and genocide against Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in the country’s Xinjiang region.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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