Pledge to Boycott the Beijing Olympics

The hosting of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August 2008 is intended to be a triumph for the Beijing regime, which engages in serious human rights abuses against its own citizens and supports serious human rights abuses by the Governments of Sudan, Burma, and North Korea against their citizens. We, the undersigned, refuse to condone this event which, like the XI Olympiad held in Adolf Hitler's Berlin in 1936, contravenes both the history and the spirit of the Olympic Games.

Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China regularly denies the right to freedom of conscience, expression, religion, and association;
Whereas the Chinese Government also holds thousands of political prisoners without charge or trial, including democracy activists, lawyers, human rights defenders, religious leaders, journalists, trade unionists, Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghurs, ''unofficial'' church members, members of the "underground" Catholic Church, women pregnant with "illegal" children, Falun Gong practitioners, and political dissidents;

Whereas the Chinese Government has long-standing economic and military ties with Sudan and continues to strengthen these ties, including providing military assistance, in spite of the ongoing human rights abuses amounting to genocide in Darfur;

Whereas the Chinese Government has long-standing political, economic, and military ties with Burma and continues to strengthen these ties in spite of serious human rights abuses and the house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung Saan Suu Kyi;

Whereas thousands of North Koreans, in the face of a serious food shortage and political repression, have fled across the border to China, where they have been detained by the Chinese authorities and forcibly returned to North Korea where they face arbitrary detention, torture, and even summary execution;

We, the undersigned of the Beijing Boycott Coalition, hereby pledge to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

We will neither attend the Games, nor view broadcasts of the events, nor will we patronize any of the sponsors of the Games or of the broadcasts.