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Politics & the World of Sport
Belarus - the world of sport is watching!
A terrifying view of when sport crosses over the important things in life
It comes as no surprise that Olympic hype puts athletes under massive pressure. Some of it self-inflicted, some comes from their fans, officials or support team. Belarusian NOC has just taken this idea to the whole new level:
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https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1111091/timanovskaya-pleads-for-ioc-help-airport
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TOKYO, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Kristina Timanovskaya, a talented sprinter from Belarus was due to compete in 200m track heats this morning, but had been withdrawn and taken to the airport against her will by Belarusian team officials, believed to be FGB operatives, to fly home to an almost certain prosecution for criticising the national coaching staff at the Olympic Games. Timanovskaya, 24, refused to board the flight on Sunday and endured several hours of intense stand-off at Tokyo's Haneda airport that lasted until the early hours of Monday. She is now under local Police protection in Tokyo.
Belarusian NOC has a track record of human rights violations against its athletes. Its President, Viktor Lukashenko, is banned from attending Tokyo 2020 for violating the Olympic Charter and political discrimination against athletes. The same ban applies to his father and former NOCRB head, Alexander Lukashenko whose autocratic 27-year reign over the country is rapidly turning it to another North Korea.
The Timanovskaya incident follows on the heels of Lukashenko’s public threat to Belarusian Olympians made a couple of days earlier
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https://twitter.com/BelarusInSweden/status/1421119474539847688
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The International Olympic Committee has confirmed it had spoken to Tsimanouskaya and are attending to her request. While her story is far from over, Kristina Timanovskaya’s courage to stand up to brutal pressure deserves a lot of respect – as do the efforts of Global Belarusian Diaspora who have mobilised within hours to foil the kidnapping. This incident continues the long list of athletes’ rights violations by Belarusian NOC and must not be tolerated. The athletes are under enough pressure – suppressing their civil liberties will not make them perform better.
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Update: several European countries have offered political asylum to Timanovskaya. The irony is that, unlike hundreds of top Belarusian athletes, she has no track record as a political activist - she became one overnight. Which goes to show how a dysfunctional autocratic system continues shooting itself in the foot by turning a minor professional dispute into a global political scandal, and a former loyalist - into a symbol of protest.
Update:
IOC to investigate the Tsimanouskaya incident
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1111154/ioc-investigation-belarus-tsimanouskaya
There are two issues with the Timanovskaya case:
1. Forcing an athlete to leave the Olympics for political reasons (for publicly criticizing the NOC officials) is against all laws and regulations.
This is the recording of two Olympic team officials’ heated discussion with Krystina https://youtu.be/k2K5JxkEs2I in which is brought to tears.
2. Krystina’s perception of what will happen to her after her to return to Belarus in the context of unprecedented repressions of the Lukashenko regime against the Belarussian civil society. She asked for protection because more than 40,000 Belarusians have been fined, detained, sentenced, and tortured in Lukashenko’s prisons during the last year alone. The reaction of the Belarus government officials and the state funded propaganda that we are witnessing now justifies Krystina’s decision to seek refuge in Poland.
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Art Ledowsky
Secretary, the Belarusians of Perth Community Organisation
Olympic Athletes Facing off Authoritarian Government in Belarus
As the world is gripped by COVID-19, a travesty is unfolding in Belarus, an ex-soviet republic in Eastern Europe. For the last 26 years it has been ruled by a populist dictator with a soviet-era track record of handpicked parliament, corruption, censorship and state security suffocating human rights. Elections in Belarus have been rigged by the state since 1994. In 2020 the nation has been robbed of their vote at gunpoint.
The regime responded to the peaceful voter protest against brazen electoral fraud with horrific, indiscriminate police brutality on a mass scale, aimed at terrorising the whole population.
See here for a chilling summary.
Over 12,000 peaceful protesters and bystanders have been beaten, arrested, and tortured in detention. Some raped and even killed, with over 100 still missing and feared dead, and thousands still behind bars without trial. Reports of mass torture rival the atrocities of World War 2. See here for Amnesty International call for action.
The whole world is watching, in admiration, the emphatically peaceful resolve by Belarusian citizenry, including women, children and elderly, to stand up to this political violence and to make their voice heard. Top Belarusian athletes have united to protest human rights abuse in their country.
They have shown incredible courage risking their freedom, livelihoods and even lives, drawing support and expressions of solidarity from all corners of the sporting world.
They have called on The International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend Belarusian National Olympic Committee (chaired by the dictator) for violations of the Olympic Charter.
IOC President Thomas Bach supported the call following the IOC Executive Board meeting last week, this paves the way for IOC to join the rest of the international community supporting the Belarusian people in their peaceful protest, denounce state violence and demand free elections.
EU, UK, US, Canada and many other countries have already rejected the official election result and imposed sanctions on those responsible for the atrocities. International support is swelling for criminal charges in the International Criminal Court against current government for crimes against humanity. Support actions are mushrooming, including psychological support to the victims of repressions.
Belarusian athletes are facing unprecedented pressures. By comparison, the challenges flowing from the delay of the Tokyo Games seem like a walk in the park. What lessons can we, as professionals and CoSEP members, draw from this story?
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The views expressed in these articles do not necessarily represent the views of the College or the APS.